New Discoveries
by DinoMaster316
Summary: What would happen if Astrid KNEW about Hiccup and Toothless before their romantic flight? HxA. Adopted from IdiotThinker.
1. Chapter 1

Hey, everybody! Now I know what you all are thinking. _How dare he start a new story when we've all been waiting on Accidental Collision for so long! _Don't worry I will get to that soon. But I read this story (by IdiotThinker) and fell in love with it. When I saw that he had not updated it it a while, I asked if I could adopt it and finish it myself. I was thrilled when he said I could. So I came and posted it here as soon as I could. I hope to do it justice. But anyway, I will get to Accidental Collision as soon as I can.

I don't own HTTYD or any of its characters. I did not come up with this plot either. The first eleven chapters are not mine and have not been altered with the exception of spelling and grammar checks.

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**New Discoveries**

**Chapter 1**

_~Takes place while Hiccup is just getting to know Toothless~_

It was a typical day in Berk, the island that the Hairy Hooligan tribe had claimed as their territory many years ago. The air was chilly, but nothing a Viking couldn't handle. Astrid was walking out towards the southern woods; she needed to train, as her skills were beginning to get rusty. During the dragon raid two nights ago, she had managed to get a few hits in, but it still wasn't good enough. Between the flames and the cries of fear and anger, she noticed the chieftain dragging a boy about her age by his shirt.

"No dad, I'm being serious!"

Astrid narrowed her eyes in an effort to see through the darkness. As her eyes adjusted, she scoped out the boy's face. She sighed; it was just the son of the chief:_ Hiccup_.

Astrid had nothing concrete against the guy, but from a very young age, she had everyone telling her that the great Stoick the Vast's boy was nothing but a clumsy, un-Viking like burden. Soon enough, she also began to view and treat Hiccup the same as everyone else had.

Hiccup spent most of his days in the forge working with Gobber, so Astrid never saw him much. The few times she did however, he was always buried in a sketchbook, working away at the orange, glowing furnace making repairs to weapons, or generally in everyone's way. It was because Astrid had been raised to live by the way of the Viking, that her resentment towards Hiccup grew. Anyone who was a liability, who wasn't strong, who couldn't fight the beasts that plagued the village every so often and stole their livestock was destined to be treated like the scum on the bottom of your boot. And sadly, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III fit that description to a tee.

As Astrid arrived at the entrance of the woods, she took out her trusty axe from the pouch on her back. Avoiding tripping on any rocks, shrubs or roots, she found her usual spot inside the labyrinth of trees. Around her were trees with splintered trunks, branches on the ground, and rocks chipped away to such a degree that it looked like a Timberjack had gone on a rampage.

Readying her arm, Astrid let out her signature battle cry. A shriek filled the woodland air as Astrid sent her axe flying into the nearest tree.

A satisfying _thunk_ was heard and the blonde Viking had a triumphant smile on her face. "Hmm..." She pulled the axe out of the tree, "I managed to make it go deeper this time... still not good enough." She continued with this until the sun had begun to dip below the horizon._ 'I have to get home; don't need anxious parents on my case._'

Placing her axe back into its pouch, which rested upon her back, she began to walk towards the village.

"Hey! Whoa, whoa, whoa, not so fast! I won't hurt you!"

Astrid stopped dead in her tracks; the voice sounded like it wasn't too far off.

"Relax...Just lemme-!"

The voice sounded familiar. Astrid strained her ears to hear more, but suddenly a single sound made her blood run cold.

"ROAAAAARRRRRRRR!"

Astrid took off in the direction the deafening cry. As she was running, she got a quick glimpse of a huge black creature. _'That's got to be it! A dragon!'_

She stopped a few feet before her destination. Camouflaging herself in the nearest foliage, she cautiously craned her neck up to see what was happening.

The dragon was holding something under its foot. Astrid kept silent and pulled her head carefully back into the bush. It was unlike anything she had ever seen. Slowly letting her head rise, Astrid took a closer look.

The dragon was a very dark color, almost completely black, except for the shimmering midnight blue scales in the sunlight. The body was streamlined and its legs were small and slightly stubby. The wings were quite large in proportion to the dragon's body, and they looked almost bat-like. Whatever this dragon was, it was obvious that it could handle some serious speed.

This dragon was different from anything Astrid had seen or heard of. However, what had really thrown her off was what the dragon was focused on. A person was under the dragon, partially out of view. Black wings were shielding the person from her line of sight.

Astrid could almost feel the intensity of this beast as it growled menacingly. Its green eyes were intently focused on what Astrid knew was going to be his future lunch. Its pupils narrowed into slits as it pushed the person harder into the ground.

Straining to see who this unfortunate soul was, the female Viking crept closer to the lake. It was hard to maintain her balance, as this particular area of the island appeared as if someone had scooped out a portion of the Earth out with a shovel.

"Please..."

Astrid's head snapped up. "No. No, no, no. By Thor, that could not be Hiccup!" Ignoring the fact that she had possibly given away her position, she quickly prepared herself for battle.

Blue eyes scanned for any opening she had for rescuing the helpless boy. It's not as if she actually cared about Hiccup, but it didn't mean she could watch him become a burnt, bloody mess either.

Taking in a deep breath, Astrid slowly slid down the rocky cliff. She landed on a fairly big boulder. Quietly, she slipped her axe out of its pouch and held it firmly in her grip._ 'What am I going to do? If I interfere, then the dragon will just kill him! But if I don't he's dead anyways!'_ She definitely didn't like her odds. As she prepared for a strategic rescue plan, something made her stop dead in her tracks.

After an intense stare down between the dragon and Hiccup, the dragon did something completely unexpected; something that made her heart drop right into her stomach in anxiousness and relief:

It walked away.

_'It let him go. I- it let- I can't believe it. That dragon let him go?'_

The dark scaled beast ran off and tried to fly away from Hiccup. Sighing in relief, Astrid saw the young Viking was no longer in harm's way. Astrid fell to her knees and with a face painted with confusion, shock and slight (only slight!) happiness that Hiccup was safe, she ran off into the towering forest. Unable to process the information, she only pounded her feet harder against the dirt.

One thought went through Astrid's mind:

_'I have to tell someone about this.'_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Astrid ran as fast as her legs could take her. She ignored the branches and leaves that scratched her face as she made her way to the village. Breaths becoming uneven, she stopped at the entrance to the forest and tried to catch her breath.

As her ragged breathing began to stabilize, it gave her a chance to process all that had happened. She fell to her knees and looked up at the dreary gray sky. It was the norm here in Berk, but it became endlessly fascinating to Astrid for some reason; a blank canvas to project her thoughts on. Her mind wandered to the red headed boy and the fearsome dragon that had him in his sights.

_'I don't understand! Dragons are savages, they kill without hesitation… and so we have to do the same. They steal our livestock and we kill to protect what is ours…right? There is no mercy on either side and one rule remains the same: kill or be killed. No exceptions and no room for mistakes. It's been like this for years, since the first Vikings set foot on this island.'_

Astrid clutched her shirt and felt her heart pulsing. The toll of her running nonstop out to the clearing had caused it to beat erratically. Eyes beginning to sting, she recalled her father, Astor the Hammer. His mighty strength was known all throughout Berk and the distant seas. He had made a name for himself by crushing any opponent with his signature double headed hammer. Astor was a close comrade of Stoick's and considered him an equal in terms of fighting ability.

The blonde Viking smiled a bit. She didn't know much about her father's exploits, but she had heard stories. She was named after him of course. When Astrid was growing up, he had taken her under his wing and taught her everything there was to know about dragon slaying. Even at a young age, she was incredibly skilled and was able to handle an axe or fight any boy her age or older. Astrid loved her father with all of her heart, so when she had heard that he was called out to battle with a horde of dragons on the islands east of Berk, it destroyed her.

"Do not worry my sweet child," Astor gave a crying Astrid a hearty grin, "I will return and bring you the head of a mighty beast. I give you my word or may Odin himself strike me down." Astrid gave her father one last hug before wiping her tears away and giving him an equally bright smile, give or take a few missing teeth.

"Stay safe daddy." she then gave him an adorable pout, "You better keep your promise!" She received a nod in return. Astor marched out the door, and never returned.

Astrid was seven when she heard what had happened. During the raid, her father had been killed by a Deadly Nadder. When her mother had heard the news, Astrid was hiding behind a door. She felt nauseous and tears were welling up. Running up to her room, she slammed the door and began to sob violently. After a few hours had passed, she got up and walked towards the family room. Hiccupping softly from all her crying, she grabbed the axe that her father always had hanging up on the wall. She grabbed it and hugged it tightly, tears flowing anew. As she was crying, her mind went back to the last time she saw her father.

_'Daddy...why did you lie?'_

After that whole incident, Astrid's heart became colder and her hatred for the scaled creatures intensified. No longer was she the little girl who smiled at any attention that her father gave her and laughed after throwing an axe. No, she was a full-fledged Viking, sworn to destroy any dragon that dared cross her tribe. Astrid trained much harder, pushing herself past her limits. She couldn't count the number of times she had cut herself, gotten bruises or collapsed from exhaustion. She had to become stronger by any means necessary.

She became the toughest Viking in her age group on the island, and very few could take her in a fight. Not that most tried, she was very intimidating. Many boys were completely infatuated with her, but she paid them no mind. They were all the same to her. Fighting was the only thing on Astrid's mind. And although she had already healed some of the emotional scars that her father's death left her with, not all wounds could heal with time. Every year on the anniversary of her father's death, she would visit his grave and sit in silence.

Realizing that it was almost pitch black outside, Astrid pushed out any depressing thoughts and scurried home. She burst through the door, scaring the daylights out of her mother, Halldora.

"Astrid Hofferson! Why are you out so late, where have you been young lady?"

"Mom, relax I'm fine. But you won't believe it! I-" Her mother quickly interrupted.

"Honestly, I understand you're anxious about dragon training coming up."

Astrid scoffed, "I am not anxious, I'm more than prepared to-"

"But that is no reason to be coming home at all hours of the night!" Her mother sighed, "I honestly wish you wouldn't push yourself so hard. The world won't end if you took a nap instead of coming home with all these injuries."

"Mother…" Astrid calmly stated, "I. Am. Fine. The real issue here is with Hiccup." Halldora stopped at the name. "Mom he was-"

Halldora narrowed her eyes. "You haven't been hanging around that Hiccup boy have you? You know he's trouble...strange child that one. Can you believe he tried to get us to believe he caught a Night Fury? I mean really, a Night Fury! No one has seen that beast and lived to tell the tale!"

"But that's what I'm trying to tell you! I saw him with- wait what, Night Fury?" Astrid tried to recall that particular species of dragon. She was supposed to read the dragon manual for her training, but the lack of physical action held no interest to her. _'That must've been what that dragon was; a Night Fury...it makes sense. I mean NO ONE has ever seen one without dying, so I couldn't have recognized it.'_

"Yes, a Night Fury. Haven't you been reading up on your dragons to prepare for training?"

"Of course Mother, almost every other night." Halldora smiled warmly at her daughter. Meanwhile, Astrid was thanking Odin for her ability to lie through her teeth, or for her mother's gullibility; whichever one worked.

"Mother, I have something very important to tell you." Astrid swallowed a lump in her throat. This was now or never. "Hiccup wasn't lying, he actually shot down a Night Fury. I saw it with my own two eyes."

The older woman's eyes widened. Astrid began to smile and nod. _'Yes! She finally gets it!'_ Suddenly, Halldora puts her hand on her daughter's forehead.

"Are you well? You must be ill if you believe that there's any way that little boy managed to do that, let alone that you witnessed this. The shadows were playing with your eyes, child."

Astrid groaned at her mother's obliviousness. She tore her mother's hand off of her head and ran upstairs to her room. She took off her spiked shoulder pads and skirt and jumped into bed. Sighing loudly into her pillow, she had a scowl on her face.

_'She thinks I'm crazy, that's great! Well she'll see, tomorrow I'll tell everyone else, and they'll believe me!'_ With a defiant turn of her head, she fell asleep.

Soon as bright pink and orange light hit her window, Astrid was up and raring to go. She was naturally an early riser, a trait which her father claimed was an invaluable one. "Early to rise, first to strike." Astrid took this philosophy to heart and made sure to be at the ready by the break of dawn. Sleep was a luxury she could not afford.

After a quick breakfast, Astrid headed out towards the more populated parts of the village in order to share her information. However, every single person gave her the same response her mother did:

"Are ye insane girlie?"

"Uh Hiccup...as in Stoick's boy? Yeh can't be serious..."

"Ay, you've officially gone crazy, Astrid m'dear."

"...WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Astrid's eye began to twitch; this was not going as planned.

Was it really that unbelievable that Hiccup was able to do something right? Yes, a little voice in the back of her head answered. Astrid stopped. Did she really think that little of a boy she knew nothing about? Feeling an unpleasant feeling rise up from the pit of her stomach, she pushed along the crowds of people walking by. As she told the person next to her in vain about what she had witnessed, she saw Hiccup walking through carrying an armful of papers.

He looked so helpless; it was hard not to laugh. He continued to bump into people, getting knocked around like a twig. Muttering a quick sorry every now and again, he finally disappeared from sight. Astrid giggled a little at the curious boy. She realized what she was doing and gave a disgusted face._ 'Astrid Hofferson does not, I repeat, does NOT giggle!'_ What was coming over her? Just a few days ago, Hiccup was the last thing on her mind, and now she was giggling at his clumsiness? This was so wrong and twisted.

In all the hustle and bustle, a rather large Viking bumped into Astrid, slamming her into the ground. Picking herself up, she dusted herself off while silently cursing at the idiot who knocked into her. Before fully standing up, she managed to get a glimpse of the chieftain's son running off into the woods. Astrid was dumbstruck, _'This kid almost became an appetizer for a deadly overgrown lizard, and he goes back? Something is seriously wrong here...'_

It was then that an idea formed in her head: If she managed to follow Hiccup, she could have all the proof she needed! But this would have to be a secret; she didn't need any more villagers thinking she was crazy. Keeping her eyes on her target, she picked up her pace and followed him.

"Something strange is going on here, and I'm going to find out what. What are you hiding Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Astrid was starting to get the feeling that Hiccup knew she was tailing him.

There was a perfectly good path to the lake that didn't involve thick trees, mud pits and hidden rocks that tripped her up constantly, and Hiccup chose the path that deliberately tripped her up. All these unnecessary roadblocks were making her even more frustrated. It didn't help that Hiccup was taking it all in stride. He stopped, Astrid panicked and quickly halted her movements. Breathing silently though her nose, she watched as he stretched a bit, fixed the mess of paper his arms and set off again. Releasing her held breath, she continued to prowl after her victim.

Yes, Astrid was sure that Hiccup was on to her.

Hiccup was taking the route directly to the base of the lake. She didn't want him discovering her, so she deviated from his route and quickly sped off to the same spot where she observed him before.

After making sure she was home free, Astrid sat comfortably beside a boulder partially covered by a shrub._ 'Perfect. Good spot, and there's no way that he'll see me.'_ However, just as that thought crossed her mind, she accidentally shifted her weight and broke a twig. It snapped loudly, which happened to catch the red headed target's attention. Hiccup looked wildly in all directions while Astrid kept very still._ 'Don't. Move. Don't. Breathe...oh crap, I have to breathe!'_

Shaking his head, Hiccup continued on towards the body of water. For what seemed to be the hundredth time, Astrid released a long sigh. Glaring up, she thought angrily that Odin did not have a very good sense of humor.

Creeping back to her original position, Astrid watched intently to observe Hiccup's next move. He set the papers down and started to tiptoe silently around the area. The boy seemed to be looking for something. Astrid stared as Hiccup continued to carefully creep around the area.

Sighing, she rubbed her temples in frustration. "This kid is seriously unbalanced. Heh, imagine if he was looking for that overgrown bag of scales...no, he can't have that big a death wish."

"Hello?"

Clearly, Hiccup was going to meet up with someone…or_ something_. Her blue eyes darted back and forth, searching for any sign of the black monstrosity she had seen earlier. Unbeknownst to both of them, a pair of emerald green eyes was also carefully scanning the area. These eyes didn't have any protective intent at all.

_Muscles flexed, claws extended, and a feral growl escaped the dragon's mouth. This boy was not going to come out alive this time. The eyes kept following the strange, wingless hatchling. Slowly but surely he was getting closer. Soon as the young one's footsteps got close enough, he pounced._

"ROOOOAAAR!"

Astrid kept her eyes peeled for any potential dangers that might befall Hiccup._ 'I don't even know why I'm bothering to save his sorry behind. Anyone looking for a dragon deserves what's coming to him.'_ Despite herself, she huffed and continued her lookout. Suddenly, she spotted a jet black blur appear out from behind a boulder.

"HICCUP!"

Her scream was in vain; the dragon had the boy in its sights. From what Astrid could see, it had its teeth bared and a menacing growl came from its throat. Hiccup stopped and backed up slowly. Staring it straight in the eyes, he put his hands up, "I won't hurt you. I just wanted to see if you were injured." If the beast understood any of what Hiccup was saying, it was obvious it didn't care. It slowly stepped towards him, eyes glaring daggers at him. Its pupils became slits so thin, that they bisected its vibrant green irises.

Astrid was frozen in fear. Now normally the Hofferson girl prided herself with being able to stare a dragon right in the eye and not even blink, but this time she couldn't even move. _'You have to help him! He'll die! I can't let him die!'_ Her thoughts became wildly panicked as her mind flashed back to memories of her father. _'Enough blood was spilled when my father died, I don't need another one of my tribe killed by these monsters!'_

Wiping away what she believed to be a sign of weakness, she willed herself to move just enough to grab her axe. Fingers grasping nothing but air, she internally smacked herself. _'No, I forgot it at home! Oh Thor! Why now?'_

Meanwhile, the Night Fury and Hiccup continued to be in their own little world; oblivious to the panicking Viking girl atop the cliff only a few feet away. Regaining her composure, she set her sights on the Night Fury and Hiccup. They hadn't moved from the spot that they were in before. Grabbing the small dagger hidden on the outside of her thigh, she crept closer to where the duo currently was. But something stopped her; the dragon wasn't attacking.

The menacing growl that once filled the air was gone, now replaced by a soft rumbling instead. Although its muscles were still stiff and poised to attack, the Night Fury's face seemed a bit more benevolent. It cautiously went up to Hiccup, making sure to keep eye contact with him. Its movements were surprisingly graceful, almost cat-like. Hiccup seemed to relax a little. Slowly bringing his hand up, he spoke softly, "I-I" A look of determination replaced the one of fear he had before. "I won't hurt you."

Astrid was left speechless. She had never witnessed anything like this. It was as if the dragon was listening to Hiccup's pleas._ 'I shouldn't move. If I do anything to break this silence, I might blow my cover. Hiccup might become a pile of ash.'_

Slowly making its way to the boy, the Night Fury's pupils changed. Its eyes relaxed and its pupils began to resemble ovals. It made a clicking sound and sniffed at the red head. Hiccup brought his hand closer. Astrid leaned in closer._ 'What's happening?'_

The two seemed to be evaluating the other. Suddenly, the Night Fury backed away quickly and snarled. Both Hiccup and Astrid jumped at least a foot in the air.

Hiccup began to panic. "What- what happened?"

The Night Fury continued to growl and glare at Hiccup. Attempting to pinpoint where the dragon was looking at, he brought his hand to his leg. Astrid watched him pull out a shiny, metallic object.

_'Oh! The dagger! That dragon must've spotted it and gotten scared!'_ Hiccup seemed to have come to the same conclusion and threw it on the ground. The midnight blue creature snarled and blasted fire at the dagger. It was a bright blue flame and it exploded on contact. Astrid recoiled at the sight. _'I have never seen anything like that before...from ANY dragon!'_

Hiccup tried to console the dragon. "See, nothing to be worried about. The danger's gone." Unlike before when the dragon had listened to the Viking boy, the Night Fury just bared its teeth and roared before tearing away from Hiccup. It tried to fly away, but it only managed to glide a few feet. After it landed, it moaned in displeasure.

Astrid looked on with great curiosity. After her heart had stopped beating a mile a minute, she breathed a sigh of relief._ 'Thank the gods, Hiccup's ok...Wait, what? No, not Hiccup, DEFINITELY not worried about that scrawny fishbone! My heart's just pumping from all the adrenaline! I'm just glad a fellow comrade is still alive. Quit acting like this Hofferson, get ahold of yourself.'_

Glancing down, Astrid got a quick look at the Night Fury's unsuccessful attempt at flight. She looked on with confusion. "Why don't you just fly away?" she thought aloud.

Shrugging her shoulders, she stretched her arms and legs._ 'Ugh...sitting in the same spot for an hour feels horrible.'_

After an hour of staring at Hiccup watch the Night Fury, Astrid noticed him getting up to leave and prepared to take off right after him, but could not find the energy. The day's event took a heavy toll on her as her eyelids began to grow heavier. Astrid was making her way out of the shrubbery, when a familiar voice filled the air.

"A-Astrid, what are you doing here?"

Hiccup looked extremely nervous. Astrid noticed his palms were sweating, and his hands were anxiously moving at his sides.

_'Wow, that encounter must've really shaken him up. He can barely look me in the eye, and he's all twitchy. Wait! Can't have him be suspicious by me acting all nice, I'll have to do something so he doesn't know I was watching him!'_

Astrid rolled her eyes and looked up at the treetops. She took a few steps back and looked at Hiccup out of the corner of her eye. "Yeah, what do you want?" She attempted a look of indifference, but her exhaustion made it extremely difficult.

Hiccup gave her a nervous smile and rubbed the back of his neck. "So uh...what brings you to the woods?"

"Am I not allowed here?" Astrid narrowed her eyes in annoyance.

Raising his hands disarmingly, he answered, "No! No, you can be here whenever you want! I mean not whenever, I don't think your mom will let you out at night..."

_**Glare.**_

"Not that I know what your mom's like, not at all!" Astrid toned down her anger, now knowing whether it was out of pure exhaustion or if she felt a bit of pity for the boy.

She waved her hand in the air and said, "Well I'll see you later." Hiccup relaxed a bit, but his face looked disappointed. Before she got a foot away, she managed to hear him mutter under his breath. "Way to go, you managed to screw up a simple conversation yet again...All the ladies love a stuttering Viking!" Sulking, he went off a slightly different path that Astrid's, presumably to avoid any more embarrassment.

Astrid smiled. Though she thought he was an idiot and a complete masochist, she found him slightly endearing; not that she'd ever admit that. Ever.

Trudging her feet towards her house, Astrid replayed the day's events._ 'The dragon did not attack, didn't go in for the kill...why?'_ This simply did not make sense. It went against everything her father had taught her.

As she continued on, she was oblivious to any villager that tried to get her attention. Snotlout had spotted her. Slicking back his hair, he put on his best flirt face and cozied up to Astrid.

"So babe... You. Me. Working out. What do you say?" He waggled his eyebrow for good measure. All this earned him was an elbow to the gut, and a terrifying glare. "Ow...*cough* Alrighty then, see ya later?" Astrid grunted in response, and left Snotlout to his own devices.

The now irritated Astrid did not appreciate being treated like some sort of prize to be won. All Snotlout and the other boys had done were flex their muscles and say how good they would be together. They'd talk endlessly about how perfect Astrid was for them, but never about how good they would be for her. It was just tiresome having the same routine every day. Flirt. Punishment. Walk away. Lather, rinse and repeat.

Upon coming home, Astrid ignored any words her mother was saying and climbed the stairs to her room. She flung herself into bed and willed sleep to overtake her. What she had seen today was too much to absorb and she needed time to process. Tomorrow was a new day; there would be more time. Slowly closing her eyes, she said goodnight to no one in particular and let the darkness ease her mind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The sun crept through the window of a certain blonde headed Viking. Astrid stirred from her sleep, opening her eyes a bit. The sunlight hit her head on, momentarily blinding her. Attempting to regain some semblance of vision, she stumbled out of bed. She felt absolutely exhausted. Her body seemed to agree, refusing to walk in a straight line, giving anyone who happened to be in her house the impression that she had a little too much to drink.

As Astrid stumbled along, she slipped on an article of clothing. She crashed into the ground, cursing loudly as her body met the floor.

"Son of a- !"

"Astrid!" The girl responded to her mother's voice.

"Yes, Mother!"

"Breakfast is ready!"

"On my way!"

Astrid tied her disheveled hair into a tight braid, leaving a few strands of hair to dangle in front of her face. She slipped into her spike studded skirt, put on her boots and shoulder pads and made sure to grab her axe; she was not forgetting it again. Everything seemed to be in order, so she continued into the kitchen. After an average breakfast of stew, buttermilk and leg of lamb, Astrid thanked her mother and was out the door. Today was a beautiful day, and it would not go to waste.

The island of Berk was as lively as usual. The cobble stoned path was invisible, only boots or prosthesis could be seen. Tough men were heading towards the bars to drink mead and recall their glory days or talk about slaying dragons or even brag about women. The vast majority of women were busy shopping for weapons for their husbands, or keeping house.

After reaching a certain age, the female population was taught to be a good, strong Viking while also being a proper wife. Astrid scoffed at the idea that she would tend to some man's home instead of going out and slaying dragons. She always had, in the back of her mind, had the dream of becoming a Valkyrie. They were the epitome of strength and ruthlessness. This future of the deciding of deaths entranced Astrid. However, it didn't really matter to her as long as she got to stay active during battles. In Berk, the most common future for a female was to bear children and support a family. Vikings were very much in favor of strong, brave and steadfast offspring.

As Astrid lazily breezed through town, she caught up with a familiar face.

"Well nah, is that Astrid I spy?"

Astrid immediately perked up and gave Gobber the Belch a good natured smile. "Hey Gobber," she stopped and leaned against a hut for support, "how are you today?" Astrid was very fond of the man before her. He was a drinking buddy of her father's, also anytime she needed something at the forge he would happily be of assistance.

Gobber adjusted his hook on his left hand. "I'd say pretty well lass!" She scowled as the bearded Viking ruffled her hair playfully. "Are yeh ready for dragon trainin' comin' up? With all the weapons ye keep breakin' an' dullin' I believe you'd be some stiff competition!"

The blonde gave a confident grin. "Those dragons won't know what hit them!"

Unconsciously, Astrid's eyes wandered to the false hand and foot made of metal. Gobber was never ashamed of his battle wounds, typical of any Viking really; scars meant you fought your heart out and lived.

Thinking back, Astrid remembered some of the adults talking about how he had managed to lose his hand and foot. Back where her father had been, a few dragons managed to sneak up on the Hairy Hooligans assigned to slay the nearby dragons. First it was a foot, then not long after they came back for the hand. Gobber claimed it was a giant dragon made solely of bones, but everyone says it's just one of his tall tales.

"Remember lass, it's not all abou' slashing yeh way through it all. Go for-"

"The wings and tail, I got it." Astrid blew a stray air from her face. "I remember: A downed dragon is a dead dragon."

Gobber had a wistful smile on his face. "I hope yeh know..." he put a hand on her shoulder, "yer father would've been extremely proud of how yeh turned out." With that, the older Viking turned and left leaving Astrid staring bewilderedly in his direction. Feeling chills run up and down her spine, she wiped her eyes and gave a small smile. Realizing what she was doing, Astrid put on a stern face and proceeded to knock into a few people while walking forward. Astrid was tough, and she let everyone know. Weakness wasn't something any Viking was willing to show, let alone admit was there; this went double for the prideful blonde.

Astrid, feeling rejuvenated from her walk, decided to go off to train for a bit. Looking for a quick route around the mob of people passing through the village square, she easily evaded everyone and took off to train at the cliff of _bregða._

This was one of the few places in Berk that could be called beautiful. The grass looked like a sea of green, all melding together seamlessly. It looked almost untouched compared to the rest of the island. While many areas had scorch marks of past battles, broken trees, sword slashes, or destroyed rocks, this was extremely breathtaking. The field cuts off before the cliffs of the island which overlooks a particularly fierce part of the sea. It wasn't unusual to hear the loud roar of the ocean waves as the smashed into the base of this particular cliff.

'_First I must become one with the spirits of my fallen comrades.'_

The grassy plain got its name from the battle that occurred here. Before the Hairy Hooligans resided on this isolated land, an entire squadron was sent to check the area out. Promptly upon arrival, the brave explorers were attacked by the natives of the land. It wasn't any human tribes, but dragons. They fought back as best as they could, but most of the Vikings were slaughtered. The few survivors managed to return back to their homeland and tell the Elders of their tale. They described the terrible beasts and the blood washing into the water and painting the earth a crimson red. It was then decided that vengeance must be sought. The entire tribe got on their ships and immigrated to this particular island. Vikings were hot headed and passionate by nature; they couldn't leave this lying down. As soon as they arrived, they made the cliff where the battle had taken place sacred grounds. The name of bregða meant bravery, in order to give the valiant Vikings a proper send off.

Astrid, like many others, came here in order to get a bit of understanding from their fallen comrades. Many Viking warriors hoped to find some sense of understanding, or to feel the essence of their fallen comrades; anything to find a way to improve their skills or to better themselves as Vikings. Normally, there are a few villagers paying respects, or children playing in the grass. However, today the field was completely empty, something that rarely happened.

Astrid, deciding to enjoy the rare sunshine, allowed the silence to envelop her. Placing her axe down in front of her, she took her hands, knelt down and closed her eyes as she muttered a thank you. After she was done, she leaned back and stared at the clouds slowly floating by.

"Unusually calm for this time of year…" She mused.

Astrid breathed contentedly and let her braid get tangled in the thickness of the grass. She stretched her legs out and relaxed her body. Slowly she began to close her eyes, when a small _snap_ broke the silence.

"Damn, another one."

Sitting beside a lone rock near the edge of the cliff, Astrid saw a familiar back turned away from her.

'_Hiccup?'_

The boy seemed to be sketching something in a book, when his writing instrument broke. He grumbled and pulled another one out of his belt. Wistfully looking out at the water below, he began again. Astrid made her way towards him, making sure her boots didn't give her away her position. He must have arrived without her noticing. She held her breath and slowly moved along the patches of grass. She felt a sense of familiarity with this scene.

'_I feel like I'm stalking the guy…but still, I need answers, and Hiccup has them.'_

She managed to get close enough to see what Hiccup was doing. His hand glided gracefully as he made lines in his book. Inside the book, there were incredible sketches of the scenery below. The rocks and waves below looked almost identical.

"Nice picture." She commented, momentarily forgetting her previous secrecy.

Hiccup nearly jumped out of his skin. "Who the-"

Upon seeing her, Hiccup promptly shut his mouth and turned an unusual shade of red. The boy fumbled with the papers in a sad attempt to hide them from Astrid. "I- uh, they're not done…"

Astrid was paying no mind to the stuttering boy and was instead focusing all her attention to the lines on the paper. Without realizing, she had inched her way closer to Hiccup. By the time she had realized how close she was, her face was inches away from his. Green eyes met blue as the two teenagers realized how close in proximity they were.

Astrid was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Her heart was beating quicker and her face felt warm. _'I knew warm weather in Berk was no blessing. I'm already starting to develop heat stroke."_

She pushed Hiccup away, making him fall on his back. "What do you think you're doing, being so close?" Astrid stood up and tried to mat down her skirt, it rose up a bit when she was leaning down to watch Hiccup work. Immediately, it was a bad idea. Spikes may be fashionable, but not very fun to stab your hands on. "I'm leaving!" she announced. Before Hiccup could get in a word edgewise, she was gone.

"And just when I thought I was going to have a good day…" Astrid touched her face to see if she was ill; her skin was still very warm. She muttered darkly, "I don't even know why I went over there…"

Deciding it better to just go home instead of train, Astrid walked home. She was getting more and more strange around the chieftain's son, and Astrid didn't like it; she didn't like it one bit.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

After yesterday's incident, Astrid began to become more wary around Hiccup. The scrawny little Viking was already a nuisance to her before he occupied her thoughts, but now? Any mention of him became unbearable.

She came home to her mother, still red faced, inquiring about a good remedy for heatstroke. After examining her daughter, Halldora told Astrid that she didn't have heatstroke and mumbled about how the youth of today was becoming so spoiled and coddled.

The blonde went upstairs and threw herself onto her bed. She tore off her spiked garments and examined her axe curiously. There were many scratches and dents on the handle, and it was a bit dull_. 'Got to take it to the forge for Gobber to sharpen it.' _she added thoughtfully. She slid her thumb across the blade as confirmation. Astrid threw her axe against a target on the wall, and despite the blade becoming dull, the axe stuck neatly.

Letting the calm wash over her body, Astrid stared at the ceiling. Without meaning to, Hiccup flashed through her mind. His awkward smile seemed to be burned into her memory. She narrowed her eyes and let out a frustrated sigh.

"What is with that guy?"

All of Astrid's childhood, she had been taught the Viking way: be strong, be brave, don't give up, and always fight the good fight, no matter what. Astrid had hoped to make her father proud by becoming the epitome of a Viking warrior. She was strong, fast and her battle instincts were top notch. This took extensive hours of training, but it was well worth it. _'But this little whelp is the complete opposite. He has no interest in weapons, can't carry a hammer and talks to dragons…dragons! Who the hell does that? He could've gotten killed!'_

Astrid did a double take. When did she care about the well-being of this boy? Clearly she was till feeling the after effects of being out in the sun too long.

Astrid sighed and closed her eyes tight. Nothing could ruin tomorrow. Not Hiccup, not that Night Fury, not anything. Tomorrow is when Astrid would shine. Tomorrow was…

"…dragon training! Alright yeh young 'uns, let's get started!"

Astrid gave a confident smirk; no one could best her here. Beside her were Snotlout Jorgenson, Ruffnut and Tuffnut Thonrston, and Fishlegs Ingerman. There really wasn't much competition here. Snotlout was pretty strong, but he was too cocky and got distracted easily. The twins were pretty good as well, but they spent more time trying to kill each other than they do dragons. Fishlegs was big and sturdy, but that was it. He would rather rattle on useless facts than put up a fight.

As far as anyone could tell, Astrid was the clear winner. She would get to slay a dragon, and she would get to make the village proud.

Gobber was standing, arms firmly behind his back. "Alright, here is where yeh are goin' to learn everythin' yeh need to slay a dragon! You may bruise, bleed, and possibly die…but nothin' to worry about."

"Bruise...?" A terrified Fishlegs began to tremble. "That sounds dangerous!"

"That's the point meh boy." Gobber clicked his foot and prosthetic together and walked in a straight line, passing by each teenager. "As I was sayin'..."

Tuffnut interrupted, "Man, I hope we get scars!" He cackled manically. "Chicks dig the scars." Snotlout high fived Tuffnut and glanced over at Astrid. He stepped closer to her as he attempted to woo her.

"Hey Astrid, since I know you think scars are such a turn on, do you wanna see where I have mine?" Snotlout waggled an eyebrow. _'I might have to tear that eyebrow out.'_ Astrid elbowed him in the gut and walked away without missing a beat. "I'm sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear anything over the sound of you hitting the ground." she smiled sweetly. Snotlout writhed in pain on the ground. Tuffnut had a slightly sympathetic look on his face. "Dude, your moves are just so sad. Seriously, I might be more hurt than you are just from watching that."

Snotlout wheezed, "Shut up before I make you shut up." Tuffnut stuck out his tongue. "Yeah, I'm so terrified." Snotlout got up to hit the other boy when Tuffnut gave Lout a quick kick to the knee. Immediately Snotlout was brought back to the ground.

Ruffnut watched in envy. "Hey you idiots, don't leave me out of the fun!" Quickly, she ran over and elbowed her twin in the eye. Both of them rolled around on the floor trying to top the other. Astrid rolled her eyes at the spectacle. "Anyways…" She started, "..nothing's fun unless you get a scar out of it."

"Oh yeah, scars and pain! Man I just- yeah, you gotta love that stuff..." Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch as Hiccup entered the arena with a failed attempt at bravado. "So...what's up guys?"

Astrid winced, what was he doing here? Her blue eyes glared at him, which made the boy flinch.

"What's this fishbone doing here?"

"I thought this was dragon training, not loser training..."

"I am so not cleaning up his blood!"

Hiccup nervously approached them and it was obvious he did not want to be here. Astrid watched as he sighed discontentedly; this made her angry._ 'If he's not going to take this seriously, then he should just go. Idiot.'_

Gobber stomped his foot loudly on a metal shield. This made everyone jump. "Now that yer' all here, let's get started shall we?" Hiccup joined the ranks with the other Vikings. Snotlout hit him with his shoulder, while Ruffnut and Tuffnut sniggered. Fishlegs gave him an apologetic look, which earned him a weak smile from Hiccup.

"As I was saying..." He eyed the group carefully, "This will be your dragon training. Here you will fight dragons, and become part of a Viking tradition. You will finally become full-fledged dragon slayers. Now as I said before: Bruises, blood and death. Any questions?"

In the corner of her eye, Astrid saw Hiccup gulp. She scoffed,_ 'Wimp.'_

"Now this will be yeh first lesson!" Gobber gestured towards a huge metal door. He grabbed a giant lever, and pushed it down. The tumblers echoed throughout the arena. Suddenly, a faint growling could be heard. "Lesson 1: How to survive a surprise attack! Good luck!"

The door swung open, and a round dragon came out. It fluttered in the air, looking like a hummingbird. It was a Gronkle. Fishlegs spoke up, "Uh, shouldn't you teach us how to fight them first?"

Gobber had already reached the top of the gate by the time the dragon had come out. "I believe in learning on the job!" he called back.

Astrid readied herself for battle._ 'Yes! This is what I've been waiting for!'_

The Gronkle was taking in a deep breath and quickly shot out an intense fireball right at Snotlout. "Wah!" the burly Viking cried out.

"Quick!" Gobber yelled, "What is the first thing you make sure ya have?"

Hiccup quickly dodged a fireball. "A doctor?"

"Level 10 speed?" Fishlegs couldn't run quick enough, but the blast narrowly missed him.

Astrid replied confidently, "A shield!" With that, everyone scrambled to grab something to protect themselves from the blasts. Astrid rolled and grabbed the closest shield she could find. She took off after the beast. While she was running, she saw Tuff and Ruff fighting over a shield, while Snotlout and Fishlegs standing still while gripping theirs tightly. Needless to say, all 4 managed to get shot.

"Four down!" Gobber bellowed. "Well don't just stand there Hiccup, run!"

Astrid felt the adrenaline surge through her, as she blocked a fireball from the Gronkle. She was getting back up from a roll, when she felt something touch her shoulder. She prepared to strike, but relaxed when she saw the culprit. It was Hiccup, and he looked completely frazzled. He manages to give her a nervous twitch of the lips, "I guess it's just you and me huh?

The blonde Viking saw the dragon heading towards them. "Nope, just you." She quickly tore herself away from where Hiccup was standing. She felt a slight twinge of guilt when she saw him almost get scorched by the flames. Hiccup ran as fast as he could, but he was soon cornered by the dragon. Astrid saw him shut his eyes, and brace himself for the painful death that awaited him; but that death never came.

"That was six shots, get back in yer' cage yeh little squirt!" Gobber pulled the dragon by the mouth and threw it behind the giant metal doors. Creaking loudly, the doors slowly shut and the arena was now empty, save for the Vikings.

Everyone except Gobber was covered in ash, with some hair singed off. Gobber gave Hiccup a stern look, and poked his chest. "Don't ever give a dragon a chance to corner yeh. They're beasts, the lot of em; they will not hesitate to kill yeh."

Hiccup dropped to his knees. Astrid shook her head and walked away._ 'He shouldn't be here. All Hiccup is going to do is get himself killed, and we don't need any casualties...not anymore.' _As everyone walked away, they failed to notice Hiccup's face becoming solemn. He opened and closed his mouth, then quietly got up to leave.

After another rigorous training session, all of the teens met with Gobber in the mead hall. It was pouring rain, and the lighting would frighten Thor himself.

"Alrigh', where did Astrid go wrong in the ring today?"

Astrid answered Gobber's question with indifference. "I mistimed my somersault dive. It was sloppy; it threw off my reverse tumble."

"Yeah," Ruffnut drawled, "we noticed." Astrid glared at her and huffed in annoyance. She would have to become better, to improve.

Snotlout quickly came to Astrid's defense. "No, no, you were great. That was so Astrid."

Astrid rolled her eyes at the burly boy's attempt to woo her. She noticed Hiccup came through the doors and walk towards the group, absolutely soaked to the skin.

"No, Astrid's right. You have to be hard on yerselves." Turning to Hiccup, Gobber pointed the boy out. "Now then, where did Hiccup go wrong?"

"Uh, he showed up."

"He didn't get eaten."

Astrid added bitterly, "He's never where he should be."

Hiccup didn't react to the first two comments, but flinched slightly when Astrid made her contribution. Astrid took this training seriously, and to have someone who didn't even know what he was doing messing everyone up? Regardless of whether or not Hiccup was with a dragon, or becoming more and more pronounced in her thoughts, Astrid found it extremely irritating.

"Thank you Astrid!" Gobber proclaimed. "You need to live and breathe this stuff."

Using his good hand, Gobber took out a thick, worn out book and threw it on the table. "The dragon manual; everything we know about every dragon we know of."

Astrid watched as the other teens looked at the book with reluctant and bored expressions on their faces. Fishlegs was the only one who looked like he had been given a chest full of gold. Astrid barely glanced at the manual; she had no need for such a thing. Instinct and strength were the only tools needed in a fight. Hiccup hadn't looked at anything besides the food in front of him and ignored the rest of the group.

Thunder rumbled, threatening to send a bolt of lightning down. Gobber glanced up at the ceiling and told them that they could be dismissed. "No attacks tonight, study up."

This did not go over well with the teens. "Read? While we're still alive?" asked an incredulous Ruffnut.

"Why read words when you can just kill the stuff the words tell you stuff about?"

Only Fishlegs was eagerly anticipating this assignment. "Oh! I've read it like seven times! There's this water dragon that like sprays this boiling water at your face!"

Tuffnut silenced Fishlegs' excited chatter. "Yeah, there was a chance I was gonna read that…"

"But now…" Ruffnut concurred with her brother.

Snotlout, Ruff, Tuff and Fishlegs left the table, leaving only Hiccup and Astrid. As she prepared to leave as well, Hiccup slowly walked over to her. Smiling nervously, he tried to make conversation. "So I guess we'll share?"

Astrid quickly cut him off. "Read it." She picked up and left Hiccup by himself as she walked out into the storm to go home.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"RYAAAAOOOOOOOO!"

Astrid opened her eyes quickly; she had to move. _Fast._

She was in the training arena, with giant slabs of stone standing everywhere in a maze-like fashion. Everyone was in a mad dash to run away from the dragon they were tasked to defeat today: The Deadly Nadder.

When Gobber had announced that the Nadder would be their opponent, Astrid felt her blood run cold. She knew that she would have to face one eventually, but now the opportunity was right there. Not sure whether she was angry, scared, sad or all of those combined, she readied herself to draw blood.

A large blue and orange dragon was perched atop one of the slabs. It shot a fireball at a frazzled Snotlout.

She quickly sprang into action, and ran after him. If the dragon wanted him as a target, then she'd use it as an advantage to take it down. She sprinted forward, and then tucked into a roll. While on the ground, she grabbed an axe lying on the ground.

"Gotcha!" She slammed the side of the axe into the Nadder's face as she made her escape.

_'This time it's personal.'_

Astrid hid behind a wall and waited. She saw Hiccup talking to Gobber, while ignoring the battle. She couldn't hear clearly, but Gobber yelled something that sounded something like, "Get in there!" and saw the boy run away from an oncoming Nadder strike.

"Remember kiddies, every dragon's got eh blind spot. Yeh've just got to find et!"

Astrid grunted to show that she had listened and was formulating a plan to ambush the beast. However, a certain love-struck Viking had called out to her.

"Astrid, hey!"

She rolled her eyes. Snotlout had the absolute worst timing in the world, and was way too stubborn for her liking.

"Man, isn't this so irritating?" He attempted to look nonchalant, but it didn't fool Astrid.

"Depends on what you're referring to." She swung the axe extremely close to the flirtatious teenager, to show she wasn't in the mood. Apparently the message was lost in translation.

"Trying to show off for me? Aw, you don't have to do that!"

Astrid shoved him out of the way. "Good, cause I wasn't."

Snotlout flinched at her harsh words, but didn't let them faze him. "Come on, I mean it'll always be me and you. Who else could you possible hook up with, Tuffnut?"

As if on cue, Tuffnut and Ruffnut appeared. The Nadder was already on the ground and trying to bite a chunk out of the twins. They were directly in front of the dragon's nose, and trying to stay in the spot right between its eyes. They were yelling something about finding another blind spot, and then they lost their footing and got in range of the Nadder's attack.

Shrieks filled the air, along with the scent of singed hair.

"Blind spot, yeah. Deaf spot? Not s'much..."Gobber deadpanned.

_'Yeah, I'm guessing not Tuffnut...'_

The Nadder squawked angrily as it took off towards Astrid. She was about to throw her axe, but felt herself being pulled away by the burly Snotlout.

"Don't worry babe, I got this."

He cleared his throat and swaggered towards the rampaging dragon. Lifting his arm, he took his hammer and launched it in the direction of the Nadder, missing horribly. Astrid couldn't help but chuckle and ran off, leaving Snotlout alone with the dragon.

"Aw come- The sun was in my eyes Astrid, do you want me to block the sun; because I can't do that!"

Astrid deftly swerved around every corner, eventually finding a spot sufficiently far from the action. She needed to regroup. As she crouched down low on the balls of her feet, Astrid backed into something.

"Oh, h-hey there Astrid!"

Hiccup seemed unable to look her in the eye, as if he were ashamed to be in the same spot as Astrid. She gave a quick look around before grabbing Hiccup by his fur vest.

"What are you doing here?"

"Am I not allowed to be here? Cause I could leave and go somewhere else…"

"You know what I mean! Why are you hiding? I haven't seen you make one move against that, that thing!"

Hiccup's face fell. He shrugged Astrid hands off and mumbled, "What does it matter, I'm just a screw up, right?"

"That doesn't give you an excuse not to try."

Hiccup scoffed. "This isn't me. I can't kill a bug, let alone a dragon! I wasn't even planning on going to dragon training!"

_**Boom.**_

A wall had come crashing down; not exactly the best time for conversation.

She heard shuffling footsteps and quickly grabbed Hiccup and dragged him away. The arena was now filled with the sounds of each stone slab collapsing on one another, eventually becoming silent. Astrid could hear raspy breathing. The dragon was out of energy, at least for the time being. She turned to the panicking boy beside her and angrily walked up to him.

"Why wouldn't you want to come here? This was the goal of our ancestors, to kill these beasts!"

Hiccup looked down dejectedly. He mumbled something incoherent.

"What was that?" No answer. She grabbed the front of his tunic.

"What did you say?"

"I said I know that! You think I don't know why we do this? I don't need you stating the obvious!" The moment that those words left his mouth, Hiccup's eyes filled with dread.

Astrid was shocked; no one had ever spoken to her like that before.

He continued, "I know that..." he whispered softly. "Our ancestors came to Berk to fight off dragons. That's why we named that cliff after their brave fight. That's why we do this, all this training. But I just don't think I can live up to any of that."

Astrid could hear the pure despair in Hiccup's voice as he spoke. It sounded like he wanted to cry. It was a rare day when a Viking was seen crying. It was usually after a death, or if they got too overemotional when they've had a bit too much mead. The pain in Hiccup's words pulled at Astrid's heartstrings.

"Do you know what it's like to be the Chieftain's son? To have people always expect you to be better than anyone else? To let them down because it's so damn apparent that you can barely lift a sword, let alone slay a dragon and to have an entire village of hopeful eyes suddenly turn cold and uncaring?"

Hiccup's voice grew louder, and began to waver. "You're the young prodigy of the village, you have everyone love you. Everyone looks at me like I'm some sort of disease."

All of Astrid's childhood had been littered with stories about Hiccup destroying things, making up stories or getting into trouble. Astrid thought Hiccup was nice, and couldn't understand why the village had such a low opinion of him. However, it wasn't long before a younger Astrid's look of pity and confusion morphed into the look of disdain that matched the villager's.

"I've accepted my fate as the town screw up." Hiccup's face was resolute, no emotions present in his eyes.

"I don't understand, you were completely gung-ho about slaying dragons until-"

_'Until a few days ago.'_ she finished in her head._ '…The day I caught him with the Night Fury.'_

"Things change I guess."

"Hiccup, I-"

A large shriek was heard, and the Deadly Nadder rammed through the debris of the fallen stone slabs. Hiccup and Astrid ran away, but the dragon was too fast.

"Split up!"

Hiccup nodded and took off to the opposite side of the arena. The Nadder looked on in confusion for a moment, but then decided to take off after the boy. Hiccup took notice, but despite his best efforts, couldn't run any faster. Hiccup wasn't much for strength, but he was one of the quickest Vikings in the village. Running from bullies tends to work wonders on the leg muscles. Astrid heard the dragon's shrill cry and her heart stopped.

'_Hiccup!'_

Suddenly, she found herself on the other side of the arena, tackling the auburn haired teen to the ground. They skidded along the ground and slipped under their pursuer. The Nadder kept on running, unaware that its prey was behind it.

Astrid coughed and shook off the excess dirt. She grumbled and snuck a peek at the boy under her. He was breathing heavily, but he was safe. She sighed in relief.

_'Wait, why do I care? This kid has been putting himself in danger all his life, and I've never cared. I could say that it was just camaraderie, but I didn't really care much that Tuff, Ruff or Snotlout were hurt.'_ But she trusted that they would end up just fine. Hiccup however, was much scrawnier than the others. He was defenseless. _'I have this strange urge to protect him that wasn't there before. Until we met that dragon that is...'_

"As- Astr- A..."

Hiccup's face was beet red. Her left arm was wrapped under his armpit, clutching his back. Instinctively keeping low to the ground, there was barely an inch of space between them. Her legs neatly straddling his torso, she quickly realized just how close they were. His lips were mere centimeters from hers. She kept her eyes locked onto his green ones. They were full of fright and anxiousness. She couldn't feel the rise and fall of his chest, so he must've been holding his breath. She felt herself getting closer and closer. Her heart was hammering through her chest. Astrid closed her eyes and...

"Ooh! Look, love on the battlefield!"

Astrid quickly opened her eyes and saw that Tuffnut and Ruffnut were gawking at them. The male twin had a smirk on his face, while Ruffnut looked absolutely disgusted.

"He could do so much better than her." she spat as toppled her twin brother over in annoyance.

Astrid felt anger bubble in the pit of her stomach. _'What the hell did they care?'_

Trying to save face, Astrid tried to pull away, but her axe was caught on Hiccup's shield.

"Get off, Hiccup!"

"Wha-"

"Stop being such a failure at everything! If you can't help me get this axe out, we'll both be killed, understand?"

Hiccup opened his mouth to protest, but seemed to change his mind and kept silent. His eyes lost any trace of emotion that was previously there.

Astrid felt the ground tremble. _'Oh great, the Nadder decides to NOW come charging?'_

Try as she might, Astrid couldn't get her axe free. She stuck her foot on a non-moving Hiccup and pulled hard. Letting loose a few splinters, her weapon was finally free.

"Ayaah!" Astrid chucked her battle axe right into the Nadder's face, knocking it out. Her axe left a bruise on the dragon's temple. It would've done much worse, but a chunk of Hiccup's wooden shield stuck to the blade of the axe, rendering it non-lethal.

Gobber came down from the stands and gave her a pat on the back.

"Well done Lassie! Got that scaly beast good didn't yeh?"

She felt a surge of pride go through her, but looking at the dejected boy beside her, she felt shame as well. Hiccup stood up, rubbing his face. He and Astrid's eyes met again, only this time his eyes showed no emotion.

"Hiccup..." she began.

He turned and left, leaving Astrid's gaze to linger in his direction, oblivious to her fellow Vikings congratulating her. She saw as the Nadder was taken back into its cage. As the iron doors shut, it gave Astrid a mocking look. It grunted, stuck its tongue out and was then hidden by the shadows.

Astrid did not take mockery lightly.

_'That scaly bastard wants a fight? It'll get a fight.'_

Night fell upon the island. The sky shone brilliantly with the stars twinkling above. The livestock were in their pens asleep, and the world seemed quiet and serene. The arena wasn't as quiet; the dragons were roaring and whining loudly. A loud creak was heard, and a certain Viking was seen opening the door.

"Come out you killer."

Astrid took a few steps back, sword in hand. The rusted gates opened slowly. The Deadly Nadder came out, looking quite disgruntled to say the least. The Nadder eyed Astrid and squawked angrily.

"I've got your dinner right here dragon, come and get me."

It was against the rules to have the arena opened late, but Astrid felt that this time the rules were meant to be broken. When the dragon growled menacingly at her, she growled right back. It rushed at her, and she sidestepped, leaving the Nadder confused. Then, she slashed her sword, but the Nadder jumped high and dodged. This stalemate of dipping dodging and striking continued for quite a while, with neither human nor dragon making any real contact.

Astrid took in ragged breaths, and glowered at her foe.

"It was one of you who killed my father. You deserve no mercy! Hiccup may have tried to befriend that dragon, but I won't be as merciful!"

The Nadder seemed to take in these words, but it rushed at the girl again. This time, Astrid met her foe without fear and met face to face with the Deadly Nadder. Its eyes, Astrid noticed, were not like the Night Fury's at all. These eyes were completely feral. It opened its mouth, showing rows of gleaming teeth. She shuddered a bit.

_'It's now or never, Astrid.'_

She slashed her dagger, which was hidden inside her thigh, at the Nadder's chest. It screeched, and flailed for a bit, then fell to the ground. Astrid inspected her work. It definitely wasn't dead, but it was barely breathing. Astrid sneered when she saw the dragon in agony. But not even a second later, her mouth quickly turned into a worried frown when the dragon wasn't getting up. She quickly ran to where she had cut the dragon. It wasn't too deep, but it was causing significant bleeding.

"No...What did I do?"

Tearing off her sleeve, she quickly pressed down onto the wound, but the blood was too much. She ripped off her other sleeve, and was patting the cut. This seemed to help a bit more. The Nadder warbled, and Astrid shushed it. She went around the Nadder, taking a look at how the dragon was doing, and her heart literally broke in two. The Deadly Nadder didn't look so deadly anymore. Its previous feral eyes were now replaced by empty, tired ones. She could see the tears form in its eyes. Suddenly a giant pair of gold-green eyes entered her mind.

_'Toothless...'_

She didn't know why that particular name came to mind when she thought about the Night Fury, but she was instantly reminded of the human-like eyes she saw for a brief moment that day.

A large clanging rang through the arena. Astrid turned and saw a Gronkle, a Monstrous Nightmare, and a Terrible Terror tackling the gate. The Viking shakily walked over and unlocked the other gate. Quickly, four dragons soared past her and crowded around the downed dragon. The Nightmare nuzzled the Nadder under its neck and propped it under its wing. The Gronkle growled at Astrid while the Terrible Terror hissed and made sure that Astrid made no move towards the fallen dragon.

By now, the girl was on her knees, her eyes expressing an array of emotions. She had fought dragons before, and although she hadn't exactly drawn blood, hammers and blunt objects were thrown with incredibly good accuracy. Those times she felt no remorse. But now that she had seen what could happen…it terrified her. And most shocking of all, it was that the dragons had immediately tended to the Nadder. They seemed almost…nurturing.

By the time Astrid had regained her senses, the door was closed; it was once again a silent night. She was in the arena alone and feeling absolutely horrible.

_'That wasn't supposed to happen. That wasn't supposed to happen. I should've felt proud at drawing my first dragon blood, but now I feel like as if I cut my own mother. Th-the eyes that the Nadder gave me…they looked miserable and desperate. It didn't want to die. What…what…'_

Astrid couldn't take the swirling emotions within her and took off. She had to get away from the arena, it hurt too much. Running as fast as her legs could take her, her head began to spin, and her eyesight was beginning to blur. Astrid looked at her hands' they were trembling. With complete uncertainty and fear, she managed a few words:

"What's happening to me?"

Everything around Astrid was spinning, and she fell unconscious. As she lay there, a young man with brilliant green eyes happened to pass by.

"Astrid? ASTRID!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

_Astrid struggled to open her eyes. Her vision was filled with bright orange lights, torches, she deduced. She felt arms wrapped under her legs, and a sturdy back was keeping her upright. She couldn't tell who it was, but they were very warm. She slowly closed her eyes and allowed the stranger to carry her. She was too tired to do anything, and she felt no danger. Pressing her forehead on what she presumed to be his or her neck, Astrid felt some hair tickle her face. Somehow a certain fishbone entered her mind._

_"Hiccup…"_

Astrid woke up on her bed with a pounding headache. Groggily looking up, she noticed she was in her bedroom. _'Did I fall asleep here or something? Ugh, my head feels like a Gronkle was chewing on it…'_

She stood up and walked out of her room. "Mother?" No one answered.

Seeing as no one was home, Astrid took it upon herself to get some fresh air and perhaps find a way to diminish the pain in her head.

As she made her way through the village, she noticed something strange going on. People kept asking her if she was fine, and if she remembered anything. Her look of confusion seems to silence them. When she asked what they meant, they only shook their heads and changed the subject. Shaking off the confusion, she decided to train in the woods. No axes this time, only agility exercises. The random branches and various other shrubberies made a great obstacle course.

As Astrid made her way through, she heard some bushes rustle. Quickly, she pulled out her dagger and tackled the bushes. She landed with a thud on something soft. Taking the leaves out of her hair and eyes, Astrid found herself face to face with a furiously blushing Hiccup.

_'Why does he look so flustered?'_ Looking down at their position, she noticed that her legs were wrapped around his torso, and her face only about a foot away. Astrid quickly separated herself from the compromising position, face burning from their close proximity. Hiccup looked about ready to die, face deathly pale.

"Hiccup, what in Odin's name are you doing?" The green eyed boy ignored her as he was eying the area around them desperately. Astrid growled, she did not like being ignored. She tried to stand up, only to fall back down. "What the-"

There was a fish right where she had stepped. Hiccup grabbed it and quickly made his way past Astrid and through the trees without saying a word. Not one to leave things unfinished, Astrid went in after him.

_'No way is he getting away that easily. I'm tired of waiting, I need answers now!'_

To Astrid's surprise, Hiccup was surprisingly agile. Jumping over rocks and plants, he managed to keep Astrid at bay. Astrid knew where he was headed, and it was only a matter of time before she caught up. Astrid took a different route to the lake; one where she could observe the boy privately. Soon enough, Hiccup was out of sight, but the clearing to the lake appeared. Gasping for breath, she searched for a suitable hiding spot. She slid down to a boulder just below her and waited; there was a clear view of the entire area. Hiccup had not appeared yet, but Astrid scanned the field and water for any suspicious activity. Suddenly, she felt her heart stop when she caught sight of a black creature hanging from a tree branch below. _'Is this the Night Fury?'_

"Hey, I'm back."

_'Death wish, a desperate, SERIOUS death wish._' she thought.

Hiccup came into the clearing with the slightly bruised and dirty fish in hand. Astrid watched carefully as the Night Fury unfolded its wings. Its green eyes fluttered open and it yawned._ 'So...it sleeps like a bat?'_ Astrid frowned in confusion; this dragon was an odd creature indeed.

The Night Fury carefully detached itself from the branch and slunk over to Hiccup slowly. The boy warily raised the fish so that the dragon could see it clearly. Pupils narrowed, it crouched on all fours and sniffed the air a bit. Unexpectedly, it sat down in front of Hiccup, with an innocent expression on its face. Astrid held her breath and could tell that Hiccup had done the same. The Night Fury's ear twitched as it looked at the boy.

Astrid crawled to the edge of the boulder to get a better look. It didn't look like the dragon was going to hurt Hiccup._ 'It's just staring at him...' _She took a closer look,_ '…and its eyes look normal, no slits.'_

Hiccup cautiously offered the dragon the fish. Breathing silently, Astrid watched as the Night Fury slowly opened its mouth and looked at the fish, then at Hiccup. But there was something strange about this situation.

_'Wait, what happened to its teeth?'_ Indeed, the Night Fury was all gums as it prepared to take a bite out of the tasty snack.

Hiccup frowned, "Toothless? But I could've sworn you had-"

Suddenly, sharp teeth appeared inside the dragon's mouth as it devoured the fish. It happily licked its lips.

"Teeth." Hiccup gulped.

Astrid nearly fell out of her hiding spot._ 'It has retractable teeth? Where in the damn manual does it say that?'_

The Night Fury came closer to Hiccup. The frightened teen backed up into a rock and sat down. "No, I don't have any more!"

Astrid readied her dagger. This creature was completely unpredictable. _'First it's totally nice, and then it's trying to kill him?'_ She slid off out from behind the boulder and landed on the grass below, about 20 feet away from Hiccup and the Night Fury. Astrid hid in the shadows and waited. She would not rush in and possibly get herself killed; no, she would wait.

Hiccup cringed and shrank back, while Astrid was positioning herself for attack. The Night Fury stopped and sat down on its hind legs. Its eyes rolled to the back of its head and it began to make a gurgling sound. Hiccup braced himself for the fire that was going to come. Instead, he found a fish head in his lap. Astrid was completely disgusted. She saw the dragon stare at Hiccup, as if it was asking him to do something. It gestured to the fish, and then to Hiccup. Astrid's eyes widened when it hit her, _'Oh please don't tell me it wants him to eat that!'_

Hiccup looked at it with a grimace. After smelling it, he pretended to take a bite out of it and made approving noises, but he Night Fury wasn't falling for it. Hiccup took notice and sighed dejectedly. He slowly brought the saliva coated fish to his mouth and took a small bite. Astrid nearly lost it just looking at him and Hiccup wasn't fairing any better. The dragon noticed Hiccup wasn't swallowing, so it made a swallowing gesture. Hiccup's face seemed to scream,_ 'Oh come on!'_ The boy scrunched his eyes shut and swallowed. Astrid shuddered at just watching._ 'This is a sick, sick dragon.'_

The black creature made lapping noises. Hiccup took this as it asking if he liked it. He gave it a weak smile to be friendly. Astrid watched as Hiccup smiled at the dragon. A warm feeling welled up inside, and Astrid wasn't sure she liked it.

Suddenly, Night Fury's mouth pulled into a somewhat awkward and gummy smile. Much to Astrid's surprise, she found her mouth twitching into a smile as well. She watched Hiccup raise his hand gently to make contact with the Night Fury. The atmosphere changed completely.

The dragon was no longer smiling; it growled and narrowed its eyes at Hiccup. Then, Astrid saw it turn around to stare right at her. The Night Fury held its gaze for what seemed to be an eternity.

But the dragon just snorted and glided away from the area. Astrid's heart quickly restarted and released a breath she didn't know she was holding._ 'That was close...'_ She saw the creature set fire to a small patch of grass and then made itself comfortable._ 'Maybe it didn't see me; maybe it was looking at something else?'_

She watched as Hiccup composed himself and stood up, practically unfazed. Unbeknownst to both Hiccup and Astrid, her fascination with the boy and the defiant dragon grew exponentially. This was something that Astrid would never let go of, regardless of where all of this would take her.

As she arrived to her hut, Astrid found her mother sitting quietly in the den. She had a stoic look, and Astrid was feeling a bit uneasy.

"Mother, is everything alright?"

Halldora sighed, "Where were you last night?"

A flashback from the arena popped into Astrid's mind. She broke into a cold sweat. Had someone seen her and told her mother?

"I don't know what you mean Mother, I was training." She attempted to keep her voice level, as not to raise suspicion.

"Do not lie to me Astrid Hofferson. What did that boy do to you?" Halldora's gaze was frigid.

"I told you Mother, I was…" Astrid froze. Had she heard that right? "Wait, what do you mean 'boy'? I wasn't with anyone!"

Her mother scoffed. "Oh, so the Haddock boy is no one now?"

Astrid was now absolutely lost. "Hold on, what does Hiccup have to do with anything?" This wasn't making any sense. The last time she saw Hiccup was in dragon training.

"Astrid," her mother began, "If I find out you have anything to do with that boy, if he is courting you…" Halldora's sentence hung in the air. "Astrid, you are meant for great things, just like your father."

Astrid cringed a little at the mention of Astor, but felt a little pride swell up as well. Her mother continued. "That Haddock boy may be the son of our chief, but he is nothing but trouble, and he will amount to nothing. You do not need that kind of influence in your life, not now. Not when you're doing so well in dragon training."

Astrid wasn't quite sure what she was feeling at that moment. Was it shame? Shame for associating with Hiccup and disappointing her mother? Or was it hearing her mother's words about Hiccup? She couldn't describe what she felt at that moment. Anger, confusion, sadness and guilt all swirled around in her head.

"Believe me mother, I was not with Hiccup. I was-" Astrid paused before she could go any further. Why was she hesitant to tell her mother about what had occurred at the arena? It wasn't as if she was afraid of telling her she had broken the rules and gone to the arena. No, her mother wouldn't have cared about that if she knew she had almost killed her first dragon.

'_I almost killed my first dragon.'_

The sentence sounded very odd in her head. There wasn't a sense of pride or entitlement following the statement. She felt…dirty. As if there was something to be ashamed of by trying to do what she had been raised to do, what all Vikings had been raised to do. The eyes of that Deadly Nadder that are causing all of this uneasiness. How can a monster have such human eyes? Eyes that stared at Astrid while she held the weapon covered in dragon's blood.

"I- I'm going to go to bed now." Before her mother could get a word in, Astrid was already In her room. Opening the window a few feet above her, she climbed up and jumped out, landing gracefully below.

Taking a deep breath, she let the crisp night air overtake her. The feeling of this cool night was a godsend and allowed Astrid to recollect her thoughts. Astrid began to walk at a slow pace, taking in everything that had happened. However, the action of thinking sent a sharp pain to her head and so she decided to let it go for now. As she looked out into the distance, the scenery was almost indistinguishable as the clouds were covering the moonlight. There was only the bright orange glow from the huts behind her. Suddenly, she noticed a singular glowing light moving around close to the cliffs.

"What the…?"

She made her way towards the light when she heard a distinct mumbling and a figure appeared in the darkness.

"Can't believe my dad would do that…deep sleeper…forgot…stupid door…"

"Hello?"

The figure nearly fell over and the lantern it was holding flew out of its hands. Quickly it scooped up the lantern and cursed to itself. The voice was oddly familiar, where had Astrid heard it before?

"Hiccup? Hiccup, is that you?"

Hiccup snapped around to look at Astrid. His eyes showed the same wild panic they always did. As he got up, he attempted to say something, but his stutter would not allow him a word in. Finally he managed a quick greeting before bolting.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?" Astrid took after the boy. What was his problem running away? He couldn't stand to be near her, was that it? After an astonishing about of effort, Astrid caught up to Hiccup and tackled him to the ground.

"Astrid! Oh I…I just…PLEASEDONTKILLME!"

"Why were you running?

Hiccup sighed, "I thought you'd be mad after what happened before…Your mom nearly took my head off."

This immediately caught Astrid's attention. She shoved him into the ground and put pressure on him, driving him into the ground.

"My mother is freaked out at me, and she said you had something to do with it, Haddock. What happened?"

Astrid's eyes bore into Hiccup's and he found it impossible to look away. He tried resisting, but eventually gave a look of resignation and sighed.

"Ok. Here's what happened."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Her bare feet running across the cold floor of her home, Astrid skidded to a stop when she reached her mother's room. She knocked on the door loudly and was clutching her nightgown (How she got in one, she wasn't sure) and breathing heavily. The blood that stained her hands was so vivid in her mind. She continued to pound on the door until a groggy Viking woman answered.

"Astrid? Mmm...what are-" Her mother glanced out of her window. "For the love of Thor, do you realize what time it is?"

Astrid was too shell-shocked to notice her mother's annoyance. She pulled her towards the bed and sat her down. Her hands were shaking violently.

"M- Mom..."

"Astrid, are you OK?"

"W-What happened to me?"

Her mother took her hand and held it. "Do you remember what happened?"

"What do you mean what happened?"

Haldora sighed. "Astrid, a few days ago you were found in the arena covered in blood and unconscious."

Astrid's eyes widened, _'Does that mean that my dream...it really happened?'_

"What was I doing there?"

"I don't know, I was hoping you could tell me. You wouldn't wake up, and we were so scared. The village healer did all she could, but you wouldn't move. She checked you for any cuts or bruises, but you were untouched. We had no idea how or why you were covered in so much blood."

The blue eyed teen put her face in her hands. It hadn't been a dream after all. The fight, the Nadder, and the blood; it was all real. The tortured cries of the wounded dragon echoed in her head._ 'I caused those shrieks; I caused that dragon to writhe in pain.'_ She buried her face deeper in her palms and gave a pained smile. _'It doesn't feel as good as I thought it would.'_

Her mother pulled her hands away and gave her a concerned look.

"Do you remember what happened?"

_'Say it Astrid, say that you almost killed your first dragon. You've worked your whole life for this, just say it. Yes. Yes. Yes!'_

"No." The girl gave her mother a hardened look to help convince her. "No I don't."

Her mother raised an eyebrow. "Then why did you ask me what happened if you do not remember a thing?"

She didn't think that one through.

"I...I just saw my bloody clothes in my room and got freaked out." She was lying through her teeth. Hopefully the older Viking would buy it.

"I thought I washed those clothes, didn't I?"

"Well apparently not, since I saw then there. Its ok mom, I'll do it tomorrow."

"Ok sweetheart. Go back to sleep."

Her mother stroked her hair and gave her a gentle smile. Though Vikings were a tough bunch, there was nothing more sacred than the love for their children.

Astrid quietly nodded and went back to her room. Walking slowly, she tried to understand why she had said no when her mother asked her if she remembered what happened. It would've made her mother so proud. She shivered as the cold wind blew in.

_'So I fought a Deadly Nadder...Looks like I did well in dragon training. Still can't believe I don't remember though. It's kind of like Hiccup's short attention span...Oh my gods.'_

"Hiccup." she spoke aloud.

If her dream was real, then all those hurtful things that she said really did happen. That look of hurt on his face after she called him a failure, that rage in her voice. And for what? Because of that little comment that Tuffnut made?

_'Why did I freak out because of that? It's not like I care what anyone thinks about me...right?'_

Astrid went back to all of the times she had spent with or near Hiccup. There weren't that many, and she could probably count them all on one hand. But recently, she noticed a change. She didn't have any animosity towards him, at least not as much. He still managed to get under her skin however.

She reached her bedroom door and got inside. Instead of climbing into her bed however, she stood up and jumped on it to reach a window that was high up. Astrid managed to grab onto the tiny ledge and hoist herself up. Struggling, she finally managed to sit down properly.

The village looked absolutely stunning at night. Her hut was along the edges of the island, but it was rare that the ocean could be heard. It was only on quiet night like this one that Astrid could hear the roar of the waves. The sky was cloudy, so no stars out tonight. She smiled a little. Astrid recalled her father taking her to the cliffs beside her home and they would listen to the waves together. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be immersed in the natural sounds of the island.

"Stupid locked door..."

Astrid snapped her eyes open at the interruption. She saw a silhouette walking along the edges of Berk. It was slouched and muttering incoherently. Jumping out of the window, (thanking Thor that she wasn't that high up) she walked over to the stranger. The light from the torches weren't as bright from far away, so Astrid couldn't identify the face.

"Hello?"

The person let out a small squeak and then tripped, falling to the ground.

"Ow..." The slightly scratchy voice was unmistakable.

"Hiccup?"

Astrid took a step forward, but got no closer. He dusted himself off and looked at her with great surprise.

"A-Astrid? You're OK?"

He tried to approach her, but stopped himself. The clouds finally cleared a bit, and the moonlight shone brightly. The look on his face showed a boy who was very ashamed. Astrid grimaced upon seeing that pained expression. She knew for a fact that she caused it. For a while, they stayed quiet. Then Hiccup broke the uncomfortable silence.

"What are you doing out here?"

Astrid looked away. "My house is like 20 feet away, what's your excuse?"

Hiccup took a look at the nearby hut and looked confused. Then it finally dawned on him. He rubbed his neck at kept his gaze towards the ground. He mumbled something Astrid couldn't quite understand.

"What was that?"

He mumbled again.

She tapped her foot impatiently. "I can't read minds, Hiccup. Can you at least speak up?"

"I got locked out..."

The blond looked flabbergasted.

"How in Odin's name did you get locked out?"

"Well, after I-" He trailed off. "I got home late, and my dad had already gotten to sleep and locked the doors. I guess he figured I was spending the night at the forge."

"Why were you out so late in the first place?"

Hiccup twiddled his thumbs. "I was uh...meeting a friend."

_'Yeah, a scaly one.'_

"Listen though, are you OK?" His green eyes studied hers as he frowned.

"You already asked me that..."

"I mean I found you unconscious and I didn't know what to do, and I ran over to your house, but your mom was mad so I took off, but I'm glad you're OK and-"

"Hiccup!" Astrid shook her head and let a small smile appear. It was so cute when he rambled like that. Yes, she said he was cute and she didn't have any trouble admitting that; well to herself.

"Look, don't worry about my mom. I'm glad you found me. I mean I would've been a lot worse if you hadn't right?" She stepped towards him. "Just remember this..."

Hiccup, now visibly nervous with Astrid's out of character actions, took a step back. "Remember what exactly?"

Suddenly Astrid found herself dangerously close to Hiccup. She could see Hiccup's pupils dilate and his very quick breathing. She smirked; even now she causes fear within people.

"You are a Hairy Hooligan, a Viking. Whether or not you accept that, you were born one. That means not backing down, taking what you want and proving your worth. No matter what anyone says, it's what you think of you that matters."

Hiccup didn't do anything to remove himself from the spot he was in. He gulped audibly and shakily replied. "Wh-why are you telling me this?"

Astrid gripped his arm and looked intently into his eyes. "I know what I said to you back at the arena, when we were fighting that Nadder." Hiccup tried to look away, but Astrid turned his head violently to keep eye contact with him. "But I was wrong. And… and…" She took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry."

Those words were not in Astrid's vocabulary. Well they were, just not the two of them together in that order. Vikings were very stubborn, and it took a hammer to the head to make them change their mind. Hiccup, like others in Berk were aware that this was a miracle. Astrid had never uttered those words before, and to have her say that to him? It was gut wrenching...or it should've been.

The blonde looked at the shell-shocked boy before her. He seemed to be processing all of this. Before he could say anything, Astrid pulled away. She gave him a light shove before running back to her home.

"Don't you dare forget that you scrawny dork!" She called out. She grinned all the way to her house.

It felt good to apologize to him. To Hiccup. To Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III. Surely but slowly, Astrid knew that he was no longer the enemy. He managed to save her life and even though she treated him so badly, he still tried to help her. He was a complete masochist, but it didn't matter. Astrid made a promise that night. To let herself be open to what Hiccup really is. And forget who she thought he was. And in the back of her mind, she would keep that little cute comment to herself. No need for anyone else to know right? Besides, it's not like she was falling for the kid.

The following days were business as usual. Astrid did everything she normally would, but she didn't follow Hiccup anymore. She was still embarrassed from the last time she saw him. She figured a little distance was good. Nowadays however, he was almost always at the forge. Also, dragon training was a bit different. Since her run in with the Nadder, the arena had been closed off for fear that the dragons would revolt. They now spent the training days reading the dragon manual, much to the dismay of Snotlout, Tuffnut and Ruffnut. Fishlegs was ecstatic, and Hiccup looked mainly uninterested. While Gobber left the teens to their studies in the dining hall, Astrid flipped through the pages nonchalantly.

"Agh! Why are we reading! We should be pounding the book into some dragons head, not reading it!" Snotlout frowned and slammed his forehead into the table.

"Seriously, I mean I don't see the point of this. This is so stupid." Tuffnut tried balancing his book on his head. He then looked at his sister with an evil smirk. "Hey this book is stupid and so are you! You should read it! It's probably got a lot of stuff you like!"

"Well OK!" Smiling sweetly, Ruffnut promptly threw her book at Tuffnut's face. He slammed into the floor and Ruffnut sat on his stomach, shoving the cover even harder into her flailing twin. "Ooh look! This is fun!"

"Aw man guys, are we lucky or what?" All eyes were on Fishlegs. "I mean there's so much information in here!"

Snotlout yawned and slid the manual away. "Too much, my head hurts."

Astrid rolled her eyes, "You didn't even open it!"

"So? I am a warrior, not a nerd. Does it look like I want to end up like Legs or Accident Boy over there?"

Fishlegs winced a bit at the insult and sulked away from the group. Astrid watched as he left. He didn't deserve that kind of treatment really. But like most people seemed to do, he slipped out of her mind. She didn't really know him well, so there was no point in dwelling.

Hiccup didn't seem to register that he was being talked about and continued to look intently at the book. His nose almost touched the page as he moved his finger along the page.

"Well..." Snotlout stretched and a cracking sound was heard. "I'm gonna go into the sun and train like a real man. Who's coming?"

Tuffnut threw his sister off of him and dusted himself off. "Count me in!"

Ruffnut hit the ground with a thud. She groaned as she grabbed her knee. "That hurt you bastard!"

Astrid turned her attention to the other girl and figured she'd give her a hand. As she began to get up, she stopped upon seeing Hiccup already there with his hand outstretched. He had a sympathetic smile on his face.

"Need help?"

Ruffnut just stared at his hand. She seemed to contemplate something before swatting his hand away. "Idiot." Then with a slight blush on her cheeks, she quickly pressed her body up against Hiccup's. This made him gasp and look around nervously while turning a deep crimson.

"I like idiots..." she said seductively.

Astrid's mouth hung open. She watched the entire scene play out. They were too close. Way too close. And Hiccup wasn't moving. Astrid did not like that Ruffnut was basically groping him and he didn't move away. She cleared her throat loudly. This didn't deter Ruffnut however. She gripped his hand and Astrid felt her hands ball up into fists.

_'Get away. Get away now. I swear to whatever gods there are that if she does not move in the next 5 seconds I will forcibly tear her hands right off.'_

Hiccup basically lost all speaking abilities and began to sputter random sounds. Ruffnut grinned even wider and intertwined their fingers. After that, Astrid slammed her book into the table. This seemed to wake Hiccup up from his little dream world. He quickly backed away and fell down. He then crawled back to where he was sitting before and covered his face with the dragon manual. Ruffnut and Astrid exchanged looks. While Astrid looked ready to draw blood, the other girl just smirked and stalked off. Astrid's eyes narrowed, but she felt relief sweep through her body.

_'What the Hel is wrong with her? I mean to invade his personal space like that! Plus grabbing Hiccup's hand like she owns him...ugh I need to wash that memory out of my brain.'_

The table was shaking. Astrid turned to Hiccup, who was now trembling. He took his face from behind the book and he looked absolutely horrified. The girl blew her bangs out of her hair and approached him. Sitting a good foot away, she attempted to start a conversation.

"You OK there?"

Hiccup looked at Astrid and then looked away quickly.

"Never better! Why?" His voice cracked a bit.

"That was some show huh?"

"Yeah, I guess..."

"Ruff likes you, who knew?"

He didn't answer. Astrid decided to change the subject.

"What were you looking at?"

At the question, Hiccup nearly jumped out of his skin.

"I- I wasn't staring at her chest or anything!"

Suddenly Astrid felt anger gnaw at her. _'That was suspiciously specific denial...'_ She didn't like that Hiccup basically confirmed that he was checking Ruffnut out. She wondered if she could interest that Night Fury in a free Viking meal...

"I meant the book."

"Oh...yeah...I was just seeing the more dangerous dragons." He paused. "Can I ask you something?"

She hesitantly slid closer to the boy. "Sure, what?"

"Did you mean what you said?"

"What did I say?"

"That you were sorry."

Astrid was taken aback. Hiccup usually wasn't this forward. Still, she had said it, and she knew there would be consequences.

"Yeah. Yes I did."

An uncomfortable silence passed between them.

"What does this mean? Are we..."

She gave him a confused look. "Are we what?"

"Friends?"

Astrid thought for a bit. The word seemed harmless enough. And her disdain for the boy had nearly gone away. Friends wouldn't be that bad. Friends was fine.

"Only if you want to, Hiccup."

Hiccup was grinning from ear to ear. His eyes twinkled in excitement and he let out a happy laugh.

"Yeah! Definitely yeah!"

Suddenly he looked very somber. The mood whiplash disconcerted Astrid.

"What's wrong?"

"Can you keep a secret? As a friend? I haven't had many, so I'm not sure how this all goes."

Without hesitation, she nodded.

"Come, follow me."

He led her by the hand and took off outside the dining hall and off towards alone hut close by. Astrid hesitantly jogged, but seeing Hiccup's face light up in excitement made her feel excited too. She gripped his hand tighter and followed him.

_'Ok.'_

They ran past the twins and Snotlout, and Astrid gave a quick dirty look to Ruffnut as the ran by. If they noticed that the two were holding hands, they didn't say anything about it. After a few minutes of running, they reached the forge. Hiccup and Astrid stopped to catch their breath.

"Why-why are we he-here?" Astrid was having trouble getting the words out. Hiccup however was already opening to the giant door. The heat from the flames stuck Astrid head on. She rubbed her eyes and saw weapons scattered everywhere.

"Take a look!"

Shutting the door behind her, Astrid saw that in a back room, there was paper everywhere. It was on the floor, stuck to the walls, and all of them had some strange design on it. After fishing through the sea of sketches, Hiccup picked up a contraption made of what seemed to be made of metal and leather.

"Um, what exactly am I looking at?"

Bending down to take a closer look at the drawing scrawled all over the floor, her eyes widened. All the pictures were of dragons. Or to be more specific, one dragon.

_'Toothless!'_

Now Astrid knew that the dragon had no name, but she had begun to refer to the big black scaly beast as such. It seemed appropriate enough.

"Agh where is it?"

Hiccup was now awkwardly looking through the messy room for something. The thing he was holding was making it a bit hard. Astrid held her arms out.

"Need help?"

Hiccup gave her a sheepish smile that made Astrid feel warm inside. She quickly took whatever the thing was and let Hiccup do whatever he was doing. She felt the object with her fingertips. The leather was very smooth and thick. It looked very well done. Well whatever it was.

"Astrid?"

The Viking girl looked up. "Hm?"

Hiccup grinned wildly while still looking very nervous. He has holding a giant saddle and some rope.

"I want you to meet a good friend of mine."

There was that smile again. Even wider than before, it made Astrid feel giddy herself. Still cute...no not cute. That wasn't the word. Handsome. That was the correct term. Still, it wasn't like she was falling for Hiccup, right? Right?


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Hiccup and Astrid were very deep in Berk's woodland area. Astrid was feeling a bit nervous about how to approach this situation.

_'Should I tell him that I know about Toothless? But that brings up the whole stalker issue...Then again if I play dumb and Toothless recognizes me, he'll know something is up...Well that sack of scales barely acknowledged me before so maybe the whole playing dumb thing will work. Ugh, now I know why most Vikings attack, then think. Making a strategy is seriously hard work. At least normally it's just people's movements, but here I have to guess how Hiccup will rea-'_

A loud crash echoed through the trees.

"Ow..." Astrid had been so caught up in her thoughts that she tripped over a stump. Hiccup immediately ran to her aid.

"A-are you ok?" He held out his hand in assistance. She scowled and slapped it away. Astrid didn't need anyone's pity.

_'Maybe certain Vikings would do well to do the same as me.'_

Hiccup looked unsettled as Astrid began to glare and mutter something about not needing to grope whenever he showed any sympathy to anyone.

"What was that, Astrid?"

Astrid snapped herself out of her slight rant and gave an embarrassed smile.

"Nothing!"

She quickly picked up whatever the leather thing was and took off ahead. Hiccup yelped and ran after her.

They were very close to the crater-like area now. Astrid sucked in a breath and blurted out, "So you never really explained what this thing was for."

The boy, who was struggling with his papers And giant saddle, gave her a sideways glance and replied, "I told you, it's to help a friend. Now you have to promise not to freak out."

"Well why would I-" Astrid started.

"Promise."

Hiccup's usual friendly face turned unbelievable serious. His deep green eyes felt like they were staring right through to Astrid's core. He really needed to know if he could trust her. Although the chieftain's son didn't know, Astrid was well aware of the dangers that this secret could create. Having a dragon in such close proximity to the village was definitely dangerous. Now the Night Fury seemed to be a bit more lax than other dragons but she didn't know enough about it to be sure.

"I promise I won't freak out. Well I'll try not to." Hiccup's gaze softened. "But it'd be easier to prevent said freak out if you would_** just explain**_!" She emphasized the last two words.

Immediately Hiccup started back on the rocky path. As he turned his back to her, he had a solemn look on his face.

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me." Astrid looked on is astonishment. When he was far enough that he became lost in the foliage, he yelled out, "But showing you will definitely make you believe!"

Astrid shook her head in pure disbelief. Didn't he know that if she were anyone else in the world seeing a dragon would send her running to the Chief and rat them out? Why place such blind faith? In the end all she could muster was a, "Wait up!" and follow him.

She approached the lake just quick enough to see the teen at the bottom of the bowl.

"How'd you got down there so fast?"

She had to yell, but he heard her all the same. He pointed to a tree with a pile of dirt in the front of it.

"Through there!"

Astrid walked up to the tree in confusion.

_'Through whe-'_

The ground caved in beneath her as she was thrown around a narrow tunnel. Screaming, she slid down and eventually hit a patch of grass. Bemoaning the bruises that were sure to appear soon, she saw Hiccup beside a shield smiling at her and motioning for her to come over.

"Kind of a hard fall the first time huh."

"I may have eaten a bit of the leather, but I'll survive."

Hiccup chuckled. He put a finger to his lips and slowly ducked under the shield. Astrid followed suit. As the two teens walked slowly in, it seemed eerily quiet.

Hiccup looked around and took a few quick steps. Seeming satisfied, he grabbed the contraption from Astrid and shrugged.

"Guess he's sleeping."

Astrid looked around the area. It looked as though nothing had changed from her last visit, although it had already been almost two weeks. She gave a quick glance at Hiccup before hearing a stern yell from the boy.

"Toothless, no!"

Astrid found herself thrown violently to the ground. She struggled as something heavy was impeding her movement. Grunting as she tried to free herself, she heard her assailant shriek. Jerking her head up to look at the source of the noise, her mouth was agape.

"Night Fury!"

The dragon had its arms and legs on top of Astrid's essentially trapping her. It growled menacingly and snapped at her face. Astrid shut her eyes and tried shoving it away, but it was too heavy.

"HELP! Get this damn beast off of me!" Astrid has had a close encounter with other dragons, but this one was literally an inch away from tearing out her throat.

_'I knew it, I knew it! All dragons are the same, no way around it. All the stupid beasts want to do is destroy!'_

Opening her eyes, she gave the Night Fury a defiant glare while tears were stinging at her eyes. "No!"

"Toothless get off now!"

This angry command caused the dragon to flinch and reluctantly pulled itself off of the trembling girl. Before walking away however, Astrid saw that it's pupils were as wide as she remembered them.

Toothless curled around Hiccup and gave Astrid a snort before closing its eyes and laying down. The boy quickly ran and grabbed Astrid by her shoulders, inspecting every inch of her.

"Are you ok? I really didn't mean for that to happen, oh gods! Please don't tell anyone, he's usually not like this! Dammit! You are such a useless reptile, Toothless! You hear me?" He gave a glare at the dragon, which earned him an eye roll.

Astrid heart was beating erratically. She had almost gotten killed!

_'But wait...that dragon's eyes...'_

Suddenly she pushed Hiccup away and stood indignantly at her feet. Stomping towards Toothless, she pointed an accusatory finger while growling, "You bastard little sack of scales! You were just screwing around with me weren't you?"

Hiccup looked absolutely flabbergasted. "Wha...?"

Toothless looked at Astrid for a moment, and then proceeded to piss her off even more. He, or she (she would have to clarify that later), gave her an absolutely cocky smirk. This made Astrid go a deep shade of crimson as she began to shout obscenities at the dragon. She came over to Toothless and slapped him (she would now refer to him as such) on the forehead.

"Who the Hel do you think you are! No one screws around with Astrid Hofferson you understand me?"

Hiccup's eyes went as round as dinner plates. He immediately ran between the two.

"Hey! Can't we just get along?"

Toothless snarled at the girl and towered over her. But Astrid showed the dragon that she would not be toyed with. Then, in exasperation, Toothless stalked off towards the barren tree.

Hiccup's gaze lingered a bit on the dragon, but then focused on the seething girl beside him.

"What was that about? Huh?"

"That dragon was just toying with me! His eyes weren't like before!"

"Before what?"

"Before when I saw him with you!" She slapped her hands over her mouth.

_'Oh for the love of- Why did I just say that? Now he's gonna ask when Toothless attacked me, which means 'll have to say I was following him, which will freak him out and we can't be friends! And we have to be friends!'_

"Astrid!" He was waving a hand in front of her face. "Are you listening?"

Blue eyes looked away ashamedly. Hiccup grabbed her wrist and gave her a purely worried look.

"What happened?"

The words were soft and simple. Any other boy would've growled and demanded she say something, but Hiccup was giving her a choice. It was something unfamiliar to her. Normally she would have to beat her way to a position where she was respected and not treated like a girl, but now that she was being talked to like an equal without any prompting...it felt weird.

"Listen..." she sighed. "I really haven't been honest with you. This isn't the first time I've met..."

"Toothless." He finished.

"Yeah, Toothless. I actually saw him attack you a while after the recent dragon raid."

Hiccup was dumbstruck. "Y-You knew?"

"And believe it or not, I was going to rat you out to the whole village; To tell them that Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III had brought down a dragon and didn't kill it."

"And did you?"

"Yep. I told anyone who would listen. All I got was skepticism and a few laughs."

Hiccup chuckled bitterly. "Well it is me, right? It's not as if I could bring down a bird, much less a dragon."

"But you did." A quiet moment passed as they stared at each other. Astrid coughed and continued. "So I decided that I would prove to people that I wasn't lying. And so I decided to discreetly follow you."

"You mean stalk me?"

Astrid punched him square in the shoulder.

"Ow!"

"Not stalking!"

"Jeez, sorry. So how long were you stalking me?"

She gave him a glare that made him put up his hands as a peace offering.

"Well, I saw how that dragon hasn't killed you. I saw when you fed it a fish and tried to talk to it. Then I saw how it threw up a fish head and made you eat it. My sympathies."

Hiccup grimaced at the memory. "The thing was coated in saliva..."

The girl put up a hand. "I already saw it, I don't need to reminisce."

"Then when I saw Toothless smile..." Astrid had a faraway look in her eyes. "it was like a wakeup call. These dragons could be happy. They could feel like we can. They weren't all savages. But that wasn't what sold me on the idea of Toothless not being bad."

Hiccup raised an eyebrow. "Then what did?"

"…the fact that you were able to touch it and not get your hand eaten."

A small smile appeared. "Yeah, that felt pretty amazing."

"Listen Hiccup, I still promise to keep your secret."

Uneasiness ran through the boy's mind, and Astrid could sense it. "Oh yeah? Why?"

"I have no idea." Hiccup frowned in confusion. "Yeah, I don't get it either."

She shrugged, "I just want to."

"Well, I really don't want to lose a friend so quickly, so you won't see me complaining. But how do I know you just won't kill Toothless now?"

Astrid lifted up her arms and moved her clothes around, much to an embarrassed Hiccup's dismay. She showed him that there were no weapons anywhere on her person.

"Proof enough?"

Hiccup tapped his chin thoughtfully. He took her wrist and led her to the tree where Toothless was hanging from his tail.

"Toothless!"

A warble was heard as the dragon unwrapped a wing from around his body. He gave a disinterested look at the two teens.

"This is Astrid. Astrid is a friend."

Giving a loud sigh, Toothless descended from the tree and approached Astrid slowly. He stopped about 3 feet away from her. They had an intense stare off that lasted a few minutes. Greenish gold eyes faced icy blue and neither budged an inch. Finally, Astrid held out her palm in a similar fashion as Hiccup had done previously. Hiccup ducked his head. She took this as a cue to do the same.

After a few second, she felt something warm against her skin.

Upon opening her eyes, she saw that Toothless extended his wing as some sort of odd handshake. He looked away and gave a grunt, which Astrid took as a reluctant agreement. Toothless looked at Hiccup as if he were asking for the boy's approval of the girl and Hiccup nodded. After the confirmation, he quickly whipped his wing back toward himself and gave her a look before going away again.

Astrid smiled determinedly and looked at her palm. It was still warm.

_'Yeah I know, not yet.'_

Hiccup patted Astrid on the back. "Now that I know you guys won't kill each other, let's get to work!"

They both ran to a little pile of medium sized rocks, where Hiccup had placed his contraption and all his papers. They took a seat cross-legged style.

Hiccup cleared his throat. "Ok, so how long ago was your last visit here?"

"It was when you first touched Toothless."

"Ok, good. So you haven't seen what I've done here." He picked up the giant saddle and placed it in front of them. "So a while back I noticed that Toothless had a tail fin missing."

Astrid tapped her fist against her hand. "Oh yeah, I saw that too!"

Hiccup nodded. "Yeah, well it turns out that he needs it to fly. I'm guessing that they stabilize his flight. I see that he can go up into the air, but he has trouble staying airborne. Now I figured I could just replicate the fin by sketching it and just making another one. Wrong move."

"What happened?"

"I strapped the fin I made on and while he finally got airborne, he knocked me off and I ended up in the lake while he fell to the ground."

Astrid winced. "Ouch."

"Eh, I'll live. So anyway, I realized that it was kind of useless since I had to hold the thing out. So then I tried to tie a rope to it and maneuver it while on Toothless' back. Turns out its bad that you can't see forwards, and we hit a tree. Plus his scales were really rough. It nearly tore apart my pants." He held up the saddle and grinned.

"This is gonna solve that problem!"

Astrid leaned forward and took some blades of grass and began to play with them. "But how does that solve the problem of not being able to look forward?"

Hiccup rubbed his neck and laughed nervously. "I'm still working on that."

"Hey Hiccup?"

"Yeah, Astrid?"

"Why are you doing all of this?"

The boy's demeanor turned very serious. His hands balled into fists. "Well it was my fault in the first place. His fin got torn off when I trapped him. I figure it's my duty to repay the debt I owe him. It's my personal vow to him and my burden to bear."

His voice was laced with honesty and didn't falter. He really meant what he said. There was some Viking in him after all.

"Honoring a promise!" She gave him a hard slap on the back. "Well damn Hiccup, I knew you had to have some Viking in you!"

Hiccup scoffed. "What, besides all this raw Vikingness?" He flexed his painfully scrawny arms. "You can't handle my amazing Viking power!"

Astrid giggled at his failing attempt to act macho. Her stomach was turning.

_'Since when was he so funny? And why is my stomach acting all weird? Oh well, it's just still nice to know that I can stay this close for a little while longer.'_

Astrid was enjoying the time that they were spending together, but she knew it couldn't last. Everyone in the village knew that to associate with Hiccup meant being a social outcast. He was only seen with Fishlegs, but even then he was mostly alone. She knew that the other teens would make fun of her and harass him if they were seen together. It was ugly, but the truth. Well Ruffnut might be more angry, but that was really a perk in her mind. Snotlout however...

She smiled sadly at Hiccup. He was so nice and friendly up close. How is it that she had never known this before? Maybe the distance between them all these years was even farther apart than Astrid had realized?

"Astrid, I'm going to need a favor. Now this task is going to be daunting. But I'm going to ask you not to back down."

_'Who does this kid think I am?'_

"I am Astrid Hofferson, and I never back down from any challenge." She smirked defiantly while Hiccup just sighed and shook his head.

"Don't say I didn't warn ya."

"Well?" She tapped her foot impatiently. "What do I have to do?"

Hiccup threw Astrid the saddle and then coiled some rope he had hidden under the rock around his shoulder.

"It's actually going to be we. And without getting into the whole back story, let's just call it tag."

"Tag?"

"Tag."

"How is that challenging?"

The boy stretched for a bit before walking towards the dragon. "Ever play tag with a Night Fury before?"

"No..."

"Well then good luck to you, because we need to get that saddle onto Toothless."

Astrid scoffed as she blew her bangs out of her eye.

"Piece of cake."

Oh how wrong she was. So very wrong.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Astrid loved playing with the boys. Being she was a girl and her body developing less massive muscles than boys, she was very agile while still having good strength. Almost immediately, every snot nosed boy knew that she was the Viking-to-be not to mess with. She could outrun most other Vikings with enough willpower. However that was mere child's play compared to the situation at hand. Her target was quicker than anyone in the village and very hard to get a grip on. Eyes of a trickster stared her down and foiled her time and again.

It seemed simple enough. Catch the Night Fury and just keep him immobilized for long enough until Hiccup could tie on the saddle. She was_ THE_ Astrid Hofferson right? Nothing was too tough with enough determination and an axe. But seeing as she had to defeat this adversary without a weapon, her pure determination was her only available choice. Sure the first or second time she attempted to tackle Toothless were unsuccessful, but she couldn't give up. Unfortunately for Astrid, Toothless had the same mindset. Just because she didn't catch him that time, it doesn't mean she won't next time.

And so the hunt continued.

"You overgrown salamander! You're gonna pay for this!"

This was the third time that Astrid had been tricked into falling into the lake. And each dunk into the frigid water was followed by a rumble of laughter from the entertained dragon.

_'I will not make a pair of shoes out of him. I will not make a pair of shoes out of him.' _She slammed into a boulder._ 'Maybe just one wouldn't be so terrible. I mean does he really need scales?'_

Muttering darkly, she watched as Hiccup stayed at least 3 feet beside her. He was ready for when (and if) Astrid managed to bring the beast the dirt off of herself, she charged again. She tried zipping in different directions to try to confuse her prey, but Toothless jumped over her with ease every time. Despite being unable to fly and having his fake tail fin removed, he was quite the escape artist. No matter where Astrid had him cornered, he always managed to one-up her.

_'Night Fury? Please, more like Night Infuriating.' _Astrid did not enjoy losing, and especially if they were just toying with her. Toothless was an evil genius, of that she was sure. He managed to elude her yet again. He disappeared from sight and then reappeared behind Astrid as she was looking around. Toothless gleefully swept his tail under Astrid's feet, causing her to come tumbling down with plenty of rage. Hiccup was particularly shocked to find out about Astrid's extensive vocabulary.

"NIGHT FURY!"

After another unsuccessful attempt, he fell to the ground and laid down with his arm covering his eyes.

"You just love making everything infinitely more complicated than it needs to be, don't you bud?"

Extremely pleased with the game they were playing; Toothless gave his signature grin and hopped atop his tree. He closed his eyes and wrapped his tail around the lone branch as he swung down. He assumed his sleeping position.

_'My chance! He's finally tired!'_

Chuckling darkly, she crept over to his spot and prepared to pounce. Before she got at least 30 feet away, Toothless shot out a blue fireball that landed inches away from the girl. Growling, he covered himself with his wings again.

"Fine! We'll have a time out then. I'm gonna let you rest then you giant sack of scales." Toothless snarled at the last comment, but Astrid paid him no mind. She made her way towards an obviously frustrated Hiccup and laid down next to him.

"I just had to pick the most stubborn dragon to shoot down didn't I?"

Astrid sighed. "Look at your past experience. You could barely lift an axe, why did you think befriending a dragon would be easier?"

Hiccup opened his mouth, but quickly shut it. "Good point."

"Why can't you just ask Toothless to let you put the saddle on him?"

Hiccup groaned, "I've tried to do that with other versions of it, but I guess he just likes to make me sweat."

Astrid looked up at the sky. The sun was already starting to set. They had to attach that saddle quick, that dragon is already quick enough, and they don't need pure darkness to add to its advantages too.

"I'm really sorry."

Astrid turned her head towards Hiccup in confusion. "For what, Hiccup?"

"That I can't catch Toothless." He sat up. "I mean, I'm pretty fast, but I don't have the strength to do it. If it was just a footrace I could catch him, but he's really strong too. I almost caught his leg, but I got knocked back."

"Wait, what? How'd you touch his leg?" She took a stick and made lines in the dirt. "Every time I catch up, he jumps into the air."

"Well, I kind of caught him off guard. I sneezed mid-run and he sort of skidded across the dirt."

Suddenly a bulb went off in Astrid's head. She ran off and inspected the lake. She saw a boulder with a lot of tall grass. And maybe a few feet next to that was an enormous rock.

_'Those spots could be just big enough...'_

"Hey Hiccup! I've got an idea! You got any leftover fish?"

"Uh yeah, why?"

"Perfect." Astrid grinned.

"Toothless! Come here buddy!"

The Night Fury unwrapped himself and groggily walked towards the boy. He looked extremely uninterested, until Hiccup took out the fish behind his back. Immediately Toothless bounded towards the boy and licked his face, while trying to gnaw at the fish. Keeping his hand on the very eager dragon's head, Hiccup pushed him away.

"Not so fast there! You gotta earn it!"

Toothless let his pupils go as large as they could, until they were perfect circles. He whined and nuzzled Hiccup's chest for good measure. Hiccup nearly gave in as soon as the Night Fury started to purr. Quickly snapping out of it, he took Toothless' head pushed it away yet again.

Hiccup pointed towards a long stretch of land.

"You beat me in a race to that side, and it's all yours. You in?"

Toothless rolled his eyes, but after stretching his legs he roared excitedly in agreement. Hiccup took a fallen branch from the ground and drew a starting line. Pointing to the edge of the bowl at least a hundred feet ahead, he gave Toothless the rules.

"Alright, if you can beat me to that spot right over there, you win the fish. I mean you have been getting a bit flabby." (This earned him an indignant roar from Toothless)

"Ready..."

Toothless' pupils had shrunk down a bit. A low rumbling was coming from his throat. Hiccup got into running position and flexed his fingers.

"Set..."

Hiccup blew a lock of hair out of his eyes and had a smile on his face, green eyes glowing with anticipation. The look on his face mirrored that of Toothless' but his reasons were entirely different. Toothless positioned his wings so that they were more streamlined. He whipped his tail around, the one tail fin staying as rigid as possible.

"...GO!"

And thus the downfall of a Night Fury, one of the most fearsome creatures, began at the hands of two teenagers. A world gone mad indeed.

Toothless managed to burst out ahead and had several feet on Hiccup. Hiccup ran full speed ahead and managed not to have his natural klutziness mess him up. After some mental cheering, he managed to close the gap between the two. Toothless wasn't having this however and put all his power into his hind legs to propel him forward. Just as victory was in sight for the dragon, a loud clap echoed all around them.

Toothless screeched and tried to come to a sliding halt. But as he tried to, a yellow blur came out from behind a rock and barreled into him. As Toothless tried to squirm away, his assailant kept a strong grip on his legs.

"Hiccup, NOW!"

Hiccup burst out of the same rock that Astrid was in and grabbed the saddle. He quickly maneuvered his way around the flailing limbs and managed to attach the main straps to three of his four legs, but the fourth was proving to be a challenge as Toothless was knocking Astrid around a fair bit.

"Almost there!" Hiccup barely dodged a barrage of black, scaly feet.

Astrid was already bruised up pretty bad, but she wasn't giving up. Strange thing was that she could've sworn she heard laughing. In fact, with every slight touch, Toothless seemed to spasm even more violently.

_'Why would...no! The dragon is freaking ticklish?'_

An evil grin spread across Astrid's face. She forced herself up towards Toothless' neck. At this, the Night Fury knocked Hiccup away and stood on all legs to pounce on his blonde prey. Their position was reminiscent of how Astrid first met Toothless when he attacked Hiccup. But before Toothless made his move, Astrid scratched under his neck.

_'If he's ticklish, then this ought to drive him nuts!'_

However the dragon wasn't squirming around like he was before. A glazed look spread across Toothless' face. Rumbling contentedly, he began to sway back and forth. Hiccup looked at the two and took this chance to sneak up behind them.

"Hey, what are you do...OOMPH!"

Toothless toppled over and was now purring contentedly on top of Astrid. She was struggling to get out from under what seemed to be 40 tons of dragon.

"Get off you sack of scales! I'm going to be crushed to death!"

Hiccup ran over to them and secured the final strap. With a satisfying _click _he wiped his brow in relief.

"I got you Astrid!" He gripped one of her hands that weren't currently being crushed and pulled as hard as he could. Slowly but surely, she slid out from underneath Toothless. She took in a deep breath and coughed loudly.

"Ok, one: Don't ever tell anyone I was almost crushed to death by some marshmallow of a dragon. And two: How much does Toothless weigh? I mean I could almost hear my internal organs crying out something about claustrophobia and being too young to die!"

Hiccup clutched his sides, laughing uncontrollably. Though Astrid was not amused, it was refreshing seeing him so open. Normally he'd be much more reserved. After wiping his eyes, he managed to wheeze out, "I wouldn't know, he's never fallen on top of me before. How'd you manage to do that?"

"Well first of all, you should know your best friend is freakishly ticklish."

"Really? Dragons are so weird..."

"But I tried to tickle his neck and he collapsed!" She looked over to the happily sleeping dragon. "I guess that's some weird pressure point or something."

"Want to know something even weirder?"

"Hiccup, what could be weirder that that?"

"He hates eels."

"Like to eat?"

"No, like 'You just burned down my village and stole my betrothed' kind of hate."

Astrid's mouth hung open in astonishment.

_'Is anything we know about dragons accurate? I mean, I didn't study that manual religiously, but all there was in it were speed, strength and its shot limit. How did we not bother to learn about these tidbits?'_

The sun was now well below the horizon. Stars were beginning to appear in the sky. By now Toothless had woken up and was gnawing at the straps of the saddle. After a few minutes of that he left it alone, presumably just not caring. The three of them were sitting around a fire that Toothless helped light. (He was too impatient to wait for Astrid to finish lighting it, and Astrid didn't appreciate having him help her with something so trivial.) Toothless was curled around Hiccup while Astrid sat across from them. They spent the time in silence. However, Astrid was the one to break it.

"Hiccup?"

The boy stopped poking the cinders and looked ahead. "Yeah?"

"I shouldn't be here..." She was now looking directly into the fire. "And neither should you."

"I know."

"We should be bringing this dragon in to your dad, the Chief, and being celebrated as heroes."

"..."

Astrid sighed and took a blade of grass and flicked it into the fire. "I'm aware of this, and you're aware of this...So why aren't we doing it? My mind keeps switching between a Viking mentality to a...well not Viking mentality."

Hiccup looked up thoughtfully. "Maybe, we're just crazy."

_'Well that's reassuring...'_

"I guess so..."

Toothless warbled in agreement, which made the two teens smile. Hiccup and Astrid accidentally met each other's eyes. As blue stared into green, a silent, mutual agreement was met. They were in way too deep to get out now. This was treading dangerous waters and they knew it. Killing dragons was ingrained into them since birth, but co-existing peacefully with them was completely foreign.

Astrid would never admit to it, but she was glad that Hiccup had trusted her. To allow her into the world that he manage to carve out with the help of Toothless. It wasn't complete however, but Astrid was more than willing to help the two out. However, this made being a loyal Viking infinitely more difficult. But for now, for tonight all there was to think about was the simplicity of the quiet night, and the boy and dragon with the same striking green eyes.

She cleared her throat, careful not to let their eyes meet again. "So what now? I mean now that we put that thing on Toothless?"

"Well I'm going to make a few adjustments to the fin I made." Astrid peered over to where the leather fin was, along with the giant pile of papers. "I need to make sure it's compatible with the saddle."

"And later what, he'll fly?"

"Well, with my help, I can hope he'll be as good as new." Hiccup scratched between Toothless' eyes, which pleased the dragon immensely. "Either that or we'll crash and die." Giving a sheepish grin, he continued. "But hey, no pressure." As he smiled, Astrid couldn't help but to do the same. Soon another silence followed, but it was a comfortable silence.

Astrid shivered a bit, and tried to curl herself up into a ball. As she felt her eyes slowly closing, she felt something warm press against her shoulder. Hiccup had walked over and sat alongside of her. Ignoring her inner voice telling her that she didn't need any pity, she leaned into his warmth.

Suddenly, she heard a whine behind her. Toothless also came to sleep alongside them. He pressed his body close to Hiccup and Astrid so that way they could have some support. His wings covered the two like a blanket. He settled his head right next to Astrid. Feeling an initial sense of uneasiness, she gradually let herself relax. Soon the sounds of nature were the only things she could hear. The fire had now begun to die down into a small, red ball and then slowly disappear. There were a million ways to fall asleep, and Astrid had to admit:

_'This isn't so bad...'_


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Many weeks passed by, and Hiccup and Astrid because closer than ever. After every day of dragon training, they met back at their usual spot and spent the day hanging out. Hiccup played with Toothless and Astrid just watched. The girl and dragon were now just mutually respectful of each other, promising not to kill the other. Hiccup always rolled his eyes whenever they got into a verbal sparring match. Although considering Toothless didn't speak much Norse, it always baffled Hiccup how they made it work. Nevertheless it was still very entertaining.

The last couple of weeks, instead of playing, the trio were hard at work trying to perfect Hiccup's flying mechanism. Hiccup spent their time apart practically living at the forge. Everyday brought a new modification. Whenever they tested it out, Hiccup rode on Toothless and Astrid took notes on what she saw went right and wrong. Hiccup had tried many times to get Astrid to ride, but both she and the Night Fury were very clear that only Hiccup could ride Toothless. They managed to stay airborne for 10 minutes, but of course it didn't count considering Toothless' saddle was tied to a rope. Astrid stayed behind them to see how the fin was working. It was all fine and well until a strong air current tore the rope and sent Hiccup and Toothless barreling into Astrid, and the three of them slammed into a baby tree. Of course this caused another argument between the Night Fury and Astrid. Between the roars and profanity, Hiccup shrugged off the pine needles and went to sketching.

Though they had their disagreements and small fights, they were still a close trio of friends. Friend was a word that Astrid didn't use lightly, at least when she meant it. Some people were friends, but she could safely say that Hiccup and (she had to admit) Toothless were FRIENDS. This couldn't always be shown outside the lake in the forest.

During dragon training, Hiccup pretended not to acknowledge Astrid any more than he had done previously. She wasn't sure how to respond to this. Obviously if they acted friendly towards each other, somebody would know something was up. But it seemed utterly ridiculous to hide their friendship when Astrid damn well didn't care what anyone thought of it. But if Hiccup wanted to play like that, Astrid was game. Besides, it was hard enough to keep screwing up when they attacked the dragons. They made a deal not to actively try to hurt any of them. Instead, they subdued them with various methods learned from spending time with the local Night Fury.

Apparently there was a certain type of grass that literally drove Toothless insane. One whiff and he began making a disturbing whine while grinning like a madman. They grabbed a few patches of it and lured the dragons into the cages with it. Also, having been almost crushed to death gave Astrid a good idea: If she did her signature battle cry while running towards the dragon and then scratching it into submission, no one would be the wiser. Hiccup however, had his method of terrifying them by hiding an eel in his fur vest. This gained Hiccup a bit more respect, and he wasn't teased as badly as he was before. They considered their methods "functional improvisation."

Today they were facing a Terrible Terror.

"Oy! That lil' creature shouldn't be taken lightly! It's called eh Terrible Terror for eh reason. Make sure ta stay on yer guard!" Of course after imparting those words of wisdom, Gobber had left to do Thor knows what. Fishlegs had a point questioning the man's teaching methods.

"Back off you guys, especially you squirt! And Astrid! This one is mine!" Hiccup merely bowed a bit, which earned him a slap and a giggle from Astrid. "Ha!" Tuffnut swaggered over to the little green dragon. It flicked its tongue out and opened its wings. "This thing isn't so tough, it's almost as big as my-" They never did figure out how big it was, because the Terror tackled Tuffnut's face and chomped down on his nose.

"I am in pain! Ow! I am in PAIN!" He howled like a little girl as he tried to tear the dragon off of his face. Fishlegs followed suit, presumably to get more information on the Terror.

Ruffnut sighed and grabbed a hammer. "Of course I had to have been born with an idiot for a twin brother. Well I have to save him, or mom will kill me." She said this in such perfect deadpan, and Hiccup tried to stifle a laugh. Everyone turned to look at the son of the chieftain because it was very rare that he laughed without it being a nervous or guilty laugh.

Upon hearing this, Ruffnut beamed and winked at Hiccup as she ran to her brother's aid. All the while, Astrid was cutting her down with her glare. Friends did not let friends date Ruffnut. And since Hiccup was her only friend,_ 'Hiccup,'_ she decided,_ 'will not date or be too friendly with her.'_ Sure it was a bit too possessive, but Vikings were not known for letting what they thought was theirs be unprotected. And Astrid decided that Hiccup needed to be protected, regardless of whether he was something that was hers or not.

"Astrid..." She could hear a seductive, yet desperate voice calling her name. She groaned, she couldn't see the sun through the thickness of the clouds, but already Astrid knew that it was way too early for this.

"What do you want Snotlout?" His eyes lit up at the sound of his name and quickly wrapped an arm around her. 'I will not kill him.' He wrapped his arm even tighter. 'I will only maim him, battle scars were all the rage nowadays right?' It suddenly occurred to her what a violent person she was. Oh well.

"Listen, I know you want to be all 'Grr Viking Tough Girl' and so that's why you won't go out with me-"

"Gee, however did you guess?" The scowl on her face was evidence that she wasn't being serious but Snotlout seemed oblivious.

"A man knows baby, a man knows." All of the images that appeared in her head only confirmed that Astrid was indeed a very violent person and could probably do unspeakable things with a hammer, an axe and a leaf. It was the leaf that was the most graphic.

As Astrid craned her neck away from the boy in disgust, she saw Hiccup's glum expression as he watched them. She quickly elbowed Snotlout in the chest and walked away as quick as she could. But as she walked, she passed by Hiccup and let her hand brush his. She watched in amusement and delight as his face turned a bright red._ 'I think I'm forgiven,' _she thought as Hiccup's goofy grin came into full view.

Now that there were no more distractions, Astrid took a deep breath. "LET'S SLAY US A DRAGON!" All of the teens cheered loudly in response. Hiccup rolled his eyes and smiled. Of course the two wouldn't try to actually hurt the dragon, but damn it all if she wasn't gonna have fun pretending she was.

The Terrible Terror was now far away from the group, stretching and looking particularly bored. Tuffnut was screaming in agony over his "horrible wounds." Quite an exaggeration for a few light scratches and a tiny puncture wound. He picked up a rock and aimed it at the dragon. Astrid winced as the predictable outcome became reality. The rock hit the Terror's tail, and sent it into a rage. Tuffnut began to run away as Ruffnut chased after it with an axe. Tuffnut stopped to catch a breath, and not paying attention, his sister crashed into him. They quickly began wrestling and hurling insults at each other. So much for them.

Snotlout was playing an interesting game of whack-a-dragon. Only the hammer made no contact and only served to aggravate the burly Viking boy. "You know what? This dragon isn't even worth my time and my expertise." Snotlout went over and flicked Hiccup on the forehead. "S'all yours cuz. Try not to die; I don't want to clean you up off the ground." Hiccup rubbed the spot in annoyance. Astrid never had a brother, but if they were like Snotlout and Hiccup, and Tuff and Ruff she'd thank Odin later for making her an only child.

Fishlegs was just standing idly playing with a sword. Hiccup went up to him, "Why aren't you trying to, y'know...destroy that uh beast?" Hiccup's non Vikingness really shined through when he tried to tough talk.

Fishlegs shrugged, "I'm not really that interested in it. I just like figuring out information on the dragons."

"Oh?" Both the boys turned their heads and saw Astrid walking towards them. She leaned on her trusty axe and looked Fishlegs straight in the eyes. "That's not very Viking-like. You look like the type to enjoy a good brawl with blood."

Fishlegs' motor functions weren't working properly seeing as his mouth hung open and his eyes unblinking. "Y-you're talking to me? You never talk to me." He looked at Hiccup. "Does she ever talk to me?" Astrid frowned. Was she really that stuck up?

_'Well I was usually preoccupied with slaying dragons and toughening up, going to the woods alone and practicing alone,'_ She smiled, she was turning a new leaf sort of, she might as well extend it past a Night Fury and the awkward Hiccup.

"Yeah, I guess I am."

Fishlegs blinked and spoke with a hint of apprehension in his voice. "Well, my parents usually keep notes of everything on the island. The books there back at the main hall are full of things that they researched." Astrid nodded her head and continued to smile. She had absolutely no clue that there were books in there. Hiccup had the same expression on his face, so hopefully he was thinking the same thing.

"Anyways, their love of research kinda rubbed off on me. I even helped with a few entries of the dragon manual. Now I only did the descriptions of the dragons, but my parents did the section on How to Slay a Dragon."

Hiccup nodded, "My dad used to tell me all the time about reconnaissance missions. They'd send in people to go behind the scenes and collect information."

"Oh yeah, my fa-" Astrid's voice cracked a bit. "My father used to go on them. He said there were tons of people that always left Berk."

Fishlegs bitterly laughed, "Yeah, but they never did much. They'd go to please the Chief, but no one wanted to waste time book learning when they could just charge in at whoever and whatever needed a beat down."

He sighed deeply and had a sorrowful expression. "My mom and dad are the reason that so many people can survive fighting dragons, but no one realizes that...Well except Hiccup and a few other higher ups. They're the ones who strategize and so they confer with us."

Astrid was taken aback. She never read the manual in detail, but there were certain facts that were common knowledge. She had always heard from her mother that they know what they know from brave Vikings giving their lives to fight dragons and collect evidence. She never specified any names, and that seemed extremely unfair. It was a great dishonor for one not to be credited with the important things they had done. No one really gave much credit to the resource of knowledge they had because reading wasn't a Viking's strong suit. Astrid knew she was guilty of this as well.

"Wow, I never knew. That's really cool Fishlegs."

Fishlegs blushed, "Thanks."

The three Viking teens stood in a slightly awkward silence. Hiccup cleared his throat and grabbed a writing utensil or "scrawler" as he called it. (Around the village it was more commonly known as "that line maker thing") "The Terror is asleep, do you guys just want to ditch?"

Indeed the tiny green dragon had happily been snoozing all this time. Fishlegs shrugged noncommittally and turned to leave. "See ya guys." He disappeared behind the towering gates.

"Well," Hiccup stretched his arms and yawned. "…quite a day huh? I'm beat."

Astrid punched him in the shoulder and laughed. "You never even did anything!" Hiccup muttered something and grinned sheepishly. "Ah, details."

"We got lucky this time, we didn't have to try and pretend to hurt that dragon."

"Yeah, I know."

"Hiccup, we need a plan." She blew the hair out of her eyes. "We can't keep stumbling in the dark trying to keep 'this' " Astrid pointed to both of them, "a secret." Immediately after finishing that sentence, she turned a bright red. "I m-mean not like an US us, but… you know what I mean!"

Hiccup's eyes went wide and quickly sputtered something much too quickly for Astrid to understand. "Fine, but what do you want to do?"

"What do you suggest, you're the braniac here."

"Well, we can't act super friendly, that's for sure. Someone will guess something is up. I mean already you have Fishlegs thinking he drank too much mead from you acting non-Astrid like." She had to admit he had a good point... "I think we should at least keep acting civil to each other. I think that's good to start."

"Yeah I guess, but something's gotta change." Hiccup looked at her quizzically. "You gotta learn to fight."

"...What? We agreed we weren't going to fight dragons!"

Astrid shook her head. "Who said I meant dragons?" She squeezed his arm, which didn't have much in terms of muscle. "Now I'm not saying you have to be exactly like Snotlout, but a little self-defense never hurt anyone. You get pushed around too much, Hiccup."

"I don't really like fighting, not my style. But I of course don't need to with...all...this..." Astrid raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, maybe I need a little help defending myself."

"And who better to teach you than THE Astrid Hofferson?" Her smile was a little too malevolent for Hiccup's taste.

"Why do I get the feeling I'm going to regret this?"

The slightly cat-like smile became a full blown evil grin. "Aw don't worry; broken bones can always be healed!" She tried her hardest not to crack up at the sight of Hiccup's horrified face.

"Tomorrow, we start training! That clear?" She took his whimper as a yes. "Good! Right after the next test flight, we'll work on everything: speed, muscle and stamina."

"Great..."

Astrid felt her confidence rise as she planned the day out. Hiccup was already good at drawing, speed, and dragon whispering and she felt useless. Now it was her turn to contribute.

When they arrived at their spot, Toothless was comforting the very sullen boy. When the dragon nudged Hiccup to get his attention, the boy had managed to get a glimpse of a very happy Astrid sitting across from him, which drove him into further depression. Toothless turned to look at Astrid, who was whistling innocently. Toothless cocked his head, and warbled something before nuzzling into Hiccup's chest. To him, humans were incomprehensible.

Meanwhile back at the arena, a slightly tipsy Gobber ran over to the arena, only to see a sleeping dragon and no one around.

" 'ello? Did yeh all leave?" He grumbled as he walked down to the base of the arena. "They coulda ah leas' locked up..."

After Astrid had said goodbye to Hiccup and Toothless, she headed home where she went straight to bed. She plopped down on her blankets and stared at the ceiling. She smiled, and a comforting face entered her mind. His face was covered in a thick blonde beard and had twinkling blue eyes.

_'Dad, I don't know if you approve but I'm finally finding something I care about. I know dragons were our enemies but maybe this can change it. With Hiccup and Toothless...oh yeah you haven't met Toothless. Well he's a dragon, in the loosest term. He's pretty much a marshmallow who rolls over for some smelly grass.' _Her lips curved up into a small smile at the memory._ 'I hope you understand that I don't hate dragons as much as you did. Not that I'm going soft, but I'm tired of making enemies that I don't need to have. You taught me to think first and then fight, that we had enough brainless brawlers and needed more intelligent fighters. Well here I am, and I'm smart enough to know not to fight.'_ Astrid sighed. _'I know this isn't what you thought would happen, but I couldn't help it. If it helps, I can still kick anyone's ass on the island! In fact tomorrow I'm teaching Hiccup how to fight. Wish me luck….'_

Astrid could feel her eyelids drooping down. She yawned and buried herself in her blankets.

_'Good night dad, I miss you._'


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

The next day, Stoick and the others that set out for Helheim's Gate returned to Berk. Because of this dragon training was called off and the trainees were giving a snow day of sorts.

Gobber walked down the docks to meet his friend. But, upon seeing only one ship of three returning, and in extremely poor condition, he could tell this wasn't going to be a happy reunion.

"Well, I trust you found the nest at least?"

"Not. Even. Close."

"Oh, _excellent._"

"I hope you had a little more success than me," Stoick questioned, while Gobber took his bag.

"Well, if by success you mean that your parenting troubles are over with, then… yes."

"Wha–" Stoick started, but he didn't get a chance to finish because Astrid's mother came running down the docks to talk.

"Congratulations, Stoick! Everyone is sooo relived," Halldora exclaimed.

"Out with the old and in with the new, right!"

"No one will miss that old nuisance."

"The village is throwing a party to celebrate!"

Stoick just stood there, shocked at what he was hearing. There were only two options for this kind of behavior. One: Hiccup had done something right for a change, and not something small, but something BIG, or two: Hiccup had up and left.

Stoick decided to go with the more likely of the two options, the latter.

"He's gone?!" he asked, somewhat panicked.

"Um… yeah, most afternoons," Stoick sighed in relief, he wasn't gone, "but who can blame him, I mean, the life of a celebrity is very rough. He can barely walk through the village without being swarmed by his new fans."

Wait, what? "Hiccup?"

"Who would have thought it, eh? He has this way with the beasts. Personally, I think it comes from how much time he spends with that Hofferson lass. Always sneaking off to the woods together, those two. Started even before Hiccup became famous."

_So Astrid and Hiccup have been getting more acquainted. Maybe even a little more than that. This is interesting. Perhaps Halldora and I need to have a talk on the future of these two respectable dragon fighters._

* * *

Meanwhile, in the forest, Astrid and Hiccup were doing anything but fighting when it came to a certain Night Fury.

"Remember this is your first _real _flight. No ropes, no cove, and no places to softly land if things go bad."

"Astrid, relax. We got this. You get the cove set up for training and Toothless and I will do our best not to die."

Astrid gave him a glare that even Toothless shied away from. "Kidding."

"Listen Hiccup; just come back in one piece."

Hiccup nodded at Astrid before climbing onto Toothless and taking off towards the cliffs. Astrid, after watching them disappear into the sky, looked around the cove. It was really the ideal place to train. With the small body of water, they could do swimming exercises. The ground was hard enough for good traction, yet soft enough to not be too hard on the knees. There was also shade to rest and even a small cave to take a short snooze in.

As for equipment, all she had brought was one of each type of main weapon used on Berk. A long sword, broadsword, hammer, one and two bladed axe (personal favorite), spear, bludgeon, mace, bow, and a quiver of arrows were all ready to be tested to find the perfect weapon for Hiccup.

Really, there was nothing to "set up", so she decided to head for the cliffs and see if she could watch Hiccup and Toothless.

She was got there just as Hiccup was taking off again. She knew the plan; successfully steer Toothless over the ocean and get back safely. Basically, just making sure to memorize the movements of his foot and see how the tail fin reacts. Taking out a spyglass, which had been made by Hiccup himself, she settled down to watch their progress.

She could see the pair start to dive and make their way under a large stone archway that they had marked just for this test. _So far, so good,_ Astrid thought to herself. Until, Hiccup decided that it would be a good idea to steer Toothless strait into a stone pillar. Astrid grimaced when it same thing happened again. _Come on, Hiccup. Get with the program._

A sense of déjà vu suddenly came over her as she remembered thinking those same thoughts about Hiccup at the start of dragon training. It startled her how much had changed since then. Not that she didn't like the change; just that everything was flipped upside down and inside out. She was friends with a dragon, a Night Fury, no less, when not a month ago, she was trying to do everything in her power to kill dragons. A month ago, she would have beaten anyone to a bloody pulp if they had so much as suggested that she try to get to know Hiccup better and now she would do that if they suggested that she didn't. A month ago, she wouldn't have cared if a dragon was killed in battle, if anything, she would have cheered the person on who did the killing. Today, she was hoping that Toothless came back from this flight without so much as a lost scale. As for Hiccup… gosh, the thought of him getting significantly hurt terrified her. It was one thing to make jokes about it. It was quite another for it to actually happen.

But it didn't look like Astrid would be getting her wish. For at that moment, a terrified screech filled her ears and violently jerked her away from her thoughts. Looking through the spyglass, her heart froze. There was Hiccup and Toothless separated and falling. Without Hiccup, Toothless couldn't fly and without Toothless, Hiccup couldn't either. It was a deadly cycle.

Astrid could only watch as each figure tried to straighten themselves. Finally, after Hiccup getting slapped by wing and tail, he managed to grab onto Toothless' saddle and clip himself in. But now they were in a true dive, heading vertically down toward the forest. At the last second, Toothless/Hiccup put on the brakes and skimmed over the tree tops… strait for the stone pillar maze surrounded in fog. _Honestly, can they not catch a break!?_ Soon Toothless/Hiccup were swallowed by the mist. Astrid's heart was in her throat. Where were they? There was no way that they could have made it through that maze at such breakneck speeds! Not even a Night Fury! With BOTH tailfins and NO rider! No, it was impossible and they were both probably dead and what would she tell Stoick or Gobber and what would _she_ do, losing them so quickly after truly meeting them, getting to know them, sharing their happiness, …learning to _love _them_,_… learning to love _him_…

She needn't have worried, for not one second later did she see both dragon and (more importantly) rider were very much not dead. She watched as Hiccup cheered and may or may not have done a cheer herself. She laughed to herself as Toothless let loose a fire ball and forced Hiccup to fly through it. (Secretly she was glad he did. She thought he deserved a bit of punishment for putting her though that. What a way to figure out how you feel about someone.)

She quickly made her way across the island toward the spot where she had seen Toothless/Hiccup land. Gosh, with how much she was referring to them as almost a single entity, she might as well call them as such. How about Toothcup? The name sent a sudden chill up her spine and she had to physically stop walking in order for the chill to cease. She quickly resolved to never utter that name again, with her mouth or her brain.

Finally, she reached the beach that they had landed on. It was more of a stone platform than a beach really. The first thing she did was walk up to an unsuspecting Hiccup and hit him in the shoulder. Hard.

"OW! What the- Astrid! Why would you do that?!"

"I wouldn't complain too much, Haddock. What were you thinking trying to go through that maze? Were you trying to give me a heart attack?!"

"How did you know about that?"

"I was right there watching!"

"Ok, ok, calm down Astrid. Nothing happened-"

"What do you mean 'nothing happened'? First, I saw you and Toothless falling toward a very certain death, and then you both are diving toward tree tops about to be skewered, _and then_ you go through a rock pillar maze at breakneck speeds just hoping to hit one and spatter yourselves into permanent graffiti! All after I specifically told you to be careful!"

"I'm sorry?" he said meekly, not meaning for it to come out as a question.

Astrid huffed and moved to sit next to him. "Just make sure it doesn't happen again," she growled.

"Astrid." She turned to face him because his voice was suddenly serious. "I'm sorry. It didn't occur to me that there might be people who actually cared whether I got hurt or not. Up until you and Toothless came along, it was only Gobber and my dad. So …I am sorry. And thank you. For caring."

Astrid gave a small smile. "Hiccup, you better get used to me caring. Because whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me, and it will take a lot more than an almost collision to scare me off."

"Eh, I guess I could get used to it."

Suddenly, the air seems to be filled with chirping and chattering. The two look up and see a small flock of Terrors heading their way. Behind them, Hiccup and Astrid heard Toothless growling and saw him hunch protectively over his small pile of fish. Two of the Terrors approached the pile and tried to steal a bite but only one managed to grab a fish head. This lead to a small fight between the two over who got first dibs.

Toothless looked on at the fight with the expression of someone who'd just been told something that they'd known their entire life. It said one word: "Really." However, this expression morphed into one of confusion as he suddenly noticed one of his fishes get up and start to walk away. He'd never seen a dead fish stand up and walk. Then again, he'd never seen any fish, dead or alive, get up and walk.

Soon he realized the fish wasn't doing anything extraordinary. It was a Terror trying to swipe a fish. Toothless dispelled that illusion by grabbing it. A small tug-of-war ensued with the Night Fury as the obvious winner. But Terrors obviously weren't very good sports as the small dragon started to puff himself up to torch the Night Fury. Toothless merely raised an eyebrow (if that's what you could call them) and, as soon as the first glimmer of gas started to appear, he shot a small blast directly into its mouth.

The Terror got up dazedly and staggered away from Toothless. "They're not so fireproof on the inside, aren't they?" questioned Astrid. Hiccup shrugged. Astrid, in a burst of empathy, decided to take pity on the creature and tossed it a small fish from Toothless' pile. "Here you go, little guy."

The Terror brightened up considerably at the sight of food and quickly gobbled it down. Astrid went to sit back down and noticed the Terror still looking at her. It moved forward as she finished sitting and nudged her hand, curling up beside her like a cat. The weight of what they had where doing and what they had found out came crashing down on her in that moment, if it hadn't already. She turned to face her friend. "Hiccup…"

"I know. Everything we know about these guys… is wrong."

* * *

After their small revelation, the trio had headed back to the cove, where Astrid had started on Hiccup's training. Turns out that Hiccup seemed to have natural talent when it came to sword fighting. But it had taken them a while to figure this out. It wasn't until, during a break watching Hiccup write, that she suggested using his left hand instead of his right. From then on, things went a whole lot better.

Now, Astrid was on her way home having left Hiccup at the forge, with orders to try and design a lighter and quicker blade for himself, instead of the usually heavy broadsword. It wasn't until she almost ran into her that she noticed Ruffnut standing in her path.

"Astrid, we need to talk."

Well, that didn't sound at all unpleasant.

"Privately."

Oh this just keeps getting better and better. "Why? I really need to be getting home."

"It's about Hiccup."

Astrid huffed. She was already going to be in trouble for staying out too late and she really wanted to go to bed. But then again, late is late, and talk or no talk, she was going to be in trouble so why not.

"Fine. Lead the way."

After following Ruffnut into the, surprisingly, empty Great Hall she waited for her to start.

"I need to know where you stand."

"Excuse me?"

"Don't play dumb with me Astrid. You think I didn't notice how you and Hiccup always go off into the forest after dragon training together? I'm not stupid. I need to know what your motives are for getting all friendly with him."

"Um, why? It's not like I go asking you why, when he offers to give you a helping hand, you grope on him. And it's not like you're his girlfriend or anything."

"No. But I might be his future wife."

"What?"

"You know, the one he marries and, coincidently, hands the chiefdom over to."

"_WHAT?"_

"Oh come on Astrid. I thought you were smarter than this. When I marry Hiccup, I will become the chiefess. I mean, hate to say it, Hiccup is the best option for chief this town has and for every powerful man there is a powerful woman behind them."

"So that's it! You're only after him for the power?"

"Well, duh! What else would I be after him for? His skills? Nonexistent. His charm? Same. His good looks? Hate to break it to you, but he's not best picture of a good looking Viking."

"But what about him? You plan on getting married to him and then what? Just leave him in the dust?"

"Pretty much."

Astrid just gapped at her.

"There's only one thing standing in my way. You."

"Me?"

"Yep. Everyone knows that Hiccup has had a crush on you since his eyes could see properly. And with you getting all friendly with him, I wouldn't stand a chance if you decided you were after him too. So, where do you stand? What are your intentions?"

Astrid couldn't believe this. Here was Ruffnut, acting as if she had any right to ask these questions, when she was planning on hurting him horribly.

"I'll tell you what my intentions are. They're to make sure none of this comes true. To make sure that Hiccup is kept safe from you and that he doesn't get hurt. Because I care about Hiccup. He's my friend and I don't use that term lightly."

After finishing she stormed out of the Great Hall, hurrying as fast as she could home. When she got there, her mother was waiting.

"Astrid, where were you this afternoon?" Her voice was deadly calm. Astrid realized that she was at the brink of exploding.

"Um, I was in the forest."

"What were you doing?"

"Training."

"Where you with anybody? Like Hiccup?"

"…Um, no."

"Then how come Stoick comes to me this afternoon and inquires me about a marriage contract between you and Hiccup? And when I say no, he says that he has been hearing things about how you two are off in the forest doing Thor knows what?"

Astrid realized just how deep a pit she might be in.

"I told you not to be spending time with that boy and here you go gallivanting off into the forest _with Hiccup!_ Now I've got Stoick the chief on my back about giving me an answer before the official tournament about whether or not I accept his proposal!"

It was going to be a long night.


End file.
